New Lyapunov criteria for asymptotic stability and input-to-state stability of infinite dimensional systems described by functional difference equations are provided. Conditions in terms of both Lyapunov-Razumikhin functions defined on Euclidean spaces and of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals defined on infinite dimensional spaces are found. For the case of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals, necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for the asymptotic stability, in both the local and the global case, and for the input-to-state stability. This is the first time in the literature that converse Lyapunov theorems are provided for the class of nonlinear systems here studied. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.