Cryptography

and Network
Security
Sixth Edition
by William Stallings
 Chapter 2

Classical Encryption Techniques

 "I am fairly familiar with all the forms of
secret writings, and am myself the author of
a trifling monograph upon the subject, in
which I analyze one hundred and sixty
separate ciphers," said Holmes.

—The Adventure of the Dancing Men,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Symmetric Encryption

• Also referred to as conventional encryption or single-key encryption

• Was the only type of encryption in use prior to the development of
public-key encryption in the 1970s
• Remains by far the most widely used of the two types of encryption
Basic Terminology

• Plaintext
• The original message
• Cryptographic system or cipher
• Schemes used for encryption
• Ciphertext
• The coded message
• Cryptanalysis
• Techniques used for deciphering
• Enciphering or encryption a message without any
• Process of converting from plaintext to ciphertext knowledge of the enciphering
details
• Deciphering or decryption
• Restoring the plaintext from the ciphertext • Cryptology
• Areas of cryptography and
• Cryptography cryptanalysis together
• Study of encryption
More Definitions

• unconditional security
• no matter how much computer power or time is available, the cipher cannot
be broken since the ciphertext provides insufficient information to uniquely
determine the corresponding plaintext
• computational security
• given limited computing resources (eg time needed for calculations is greater
than age of universe), the cipher cannot be broken
Cryptography

• can characterize cryptographic system by:

• type of encryption operations used
• substitution
• transposition
• product
• number of keys used
• single-key or private
• two-key or public
• way in which plaintext is processed
• block
• stream
Requirements

• two requirements for secure use of symmetric encryption:

• a strong encryption algorithm
• a secret key known only to sender / receiver
• mathematically have:
Y = E(K, X)
X = D(K, Y)
• assume encryption algorithm is known
• implies a secure channel to distribute key
Simplified Model of
Symmetric Encryption
Model of Symmetric Cryptosystem
Cryptographic Systems

• Characterized along three independent dimensions:

The type of
operations used for The number of keys The way in which the
transforming plaintext used plaintext is processed
to ciphertext

Symmetric, single-
key, secret-key,
Substitution Block cipher
conventional
encryption

Asymmetric, two-
Transposition key, or public-key Stream cipher
encryption
Cryptanalysis

• objective to recover key not just message

• general approaches:
• cryptanalytic attack
• brute-force attack
• if either succeed all key use compromised
Cryptanalysis and
Brute-Force Attack

Cryptanalysis Brute-force attack

• Attack relies on the nature of the • Attacker tries every possible key
algorithm plus some knowledge of on a piece of ciphertext until an
the general characteristics of the intelligible translation into
plaintext plaintext is obtained
• Attack exploits the characteristics • On average, half of all possible
of the algorithm to attempt to keys must be tried to achieve
deduce a specific plaintext or to success
deduce the key being used
 Attacking Symmetric Encryption

• cryptanalysis
• rely on nature of the algorithm
• plus some knowledge of plaintext characteristics
• even some sample plaintext-ciphertext pairs
• exploits characteristics of algorithm to deduce specific plaintext or key
• brute-force attack
• try all possible keys on some ciphertext until get an intelligible translation into
plaintext
Brute-Force Attack

Involves trying every possible key until an intelligible

translation of the ciphertext into plaintext is
obtained

On average, half of all possible keys must be tried

to achieve success

To supplement the brute-force approach, some

degree of knowledge about the expected plaintext
is needed, and some means of automatically
distinguishing plaintext from garble is also needed
 Brute Force Search
• always possible to simply try every key
• most basic attack, proportional to key size
• assume either know / recognise plaintext

Key Size (bits) Number of Alternative Time required at 1 Time required at 106
Keys decryption/µs decryptions/µs
32 232 = 4.3  109 231 µs = 35.8 minutes 2.15 milliseconds
56 256 = 7.2  1016 255 µs = 1142 years 10.01 hours
128 2128 = 3.4  1038 2127 µs = 5.4  1024 years 5.4  1018 years

168 2168 = 3.7  1050 2167 µs = 5.9  1036 years 5.9  1030 years

26 characters 26! = 4  1026 2  1026 µs = 6.4  1012 years 6.4  106 years
(permutation)
Exhaustive Key Search
Encryption Scheme Security

• Unconditionally secure
• No matter how much time an opponent has, it is impossible for him or her to
decrypt the ciphertext simply because the required information is not there
• Computationally secure
• The cost of breaking the cipher exceeds the value of the encrypted
information
• The time required to break the cipher exceeds the useful lifetime of the
information
Substitution Technique

• Is one in which the letters of plaintext are replaced by other

letters or by numbers or symbols
• If the plaintext is viewed as a sequence of bits, then substitution
involves replacing plaintext bit patterns with ciphertext bit
patterns
Caesar Cipher

• Simplest and earliest known use of a substitution cipher

• Used by Julius Caesar
• Involves replacing each letter of the alphabet with the letter standing
three places further down the alphabet
• Alphabet is wrapped around so that the letter following Z is A
• plain: meet me after the toga party
• cipher: PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
Caesar Cipher Algorithm
• Can define transformation as:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C
• Mathematically give each letter a number
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

• Algorithm can be expressed as:

c = E(3, p) = (p + 3) mod (26)

• A shift may be of any amount, so that the general Caesar

algorithm is:
C = E(k , p ) = (p + k ) mod 26
• Where k takes on a value in the range 1 to 25; the
decryption algorithm is simply:
p = D(k , C ) = (C - k ) mod 26
Brute-Force
Cryptanalysis of Caesar
Cipher

(This chart can be found on

page 35 in the textbook)
Sample of Compressed Text
Monoalphabetic Cipher

• Permutation
• Of a finite set of elements S is an ordered sequence of all
the elements of S , with each element appearing exactly
once

• If the “cipher” line can be any permutation of the

26 alphabetic characters, then there are 26! or
greater than 4 x 1026 possible keys
• This is 10 orders of magnitude greater than the key space
for DES
• Approach is referred to as a monoalphabetic substitution
cipher because a single cipher alphabet is used per
message
Language Redundancy and Cryptanalysis

human languages are redundant

eg “how are you” “how r u”
letters are not equally commonly used
in English E is by far the most common letter
followed by T,R,N,I,O,A,S
other letters like Z,J,K,Q,X are fairly rare
have tables of single, double & triple letter frequencies for various
languages
English Letter Frequencies
 Use in Cryptanalysis
• key concept - monoalphabetic substitution ciphers do not
change relative letter frequencies
• discovered by Arabian scientists in 9th century
• calculate letter frequencies for ciphertext
• compare counts/plots against known values
• if caesar cipher look for common peaks/troughs
• peaks at: A-E-I triple, NO pair, RST triple
• troughs at: JK, X-Z
• for monoalphabetic must identify each letter
• tables of common double/triple letters help
Example Cryptanalysis

• given ciphertext:
UZQSOVUOHXMOPVGPOZPEVSGZWSZOPFPESXUDBMETSXAIZ
VUEPHZHMDZSHZOWSFPAPPDTSVPQUZWYMXUZUHSX
EPYEPOPDZSZUFPOMBZWPFUPZHMDJUDTMOHMQ
• count relative letter frequencies (see text)
• guess P & Z are e and t
• guess ZW is th and hence ZWP is the
• proceeding with trial and error finally get:
it was disclosed yesterday that several informal but
direct contacts have been made with political
representatives of the viet cong in moscow
Monoalphabetic Ciphers

• Easy to break because they reflect the frequency data of the

original alphabet
• Countermeasure is to provide multiple substitutes (homophones)
for a single letter
• Digram
• Two-letter combination
• Most common is th
• Trigram
• Three-letter combination
• Most frequent is the
Playfair Cipher

• Best-known multiple-letter encryption cipher

• Treats digrams in the plaintext as single units and translates these
units into ciphertext digrams
• Based on the use of a 5 x 5 matrix of letters constructed using a
keyword
• Invented by British scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1854
• Used as the standard field system by the British Army in World
War I and the U.S. Army and other Allied forces during World War
II
Playfair Key Matrix
• Fill in letters of keyword (minus duplicates) from left to right and
from top to bottom, then fill in the remainder of the matrix with
the remaining letters in alphabetic order
• Using the keyword MONARCHY:

M O N A R
C H Y B D
E F G I/J K
L P Q S T
U V W X Z
Encrypting and Decrypting

• plaintext is encrypted two letters at a time

• if a pair is a repeated letter, insert filler like 'X’
• if both letters fall in the same row, replace each with letter to right (wrapping
back to start from end)
• if both letters fall in the same column, replace each with the letter below it
(wrapping to top from bottom)
• otherwise each letter is replaced by the letter in the same row and in the
column of the other letter of the pair
Security of Playfair Cipher

• security much improved over monoalphabetic

• since have 26 x 26 = 676 digrams
• would need a 676 entry frequency table to analyse (verses 26 for a
monoalphabetic)
• and correspondingly more ciphertext
• was widely used for many years
• eg. by US & British military in WW1
• it can be broken, given a few hundred letters
• since still has much of plaintext structure
Hill Cipher

• Developed by the mathematician Lester Hill in 1929

• Strength is that it completely hides single-letter frequencies
• The use of a larger matrix hides more frequency information
• A 3 x 3 Hill cipher hides not only single-letter but also two-letter
frequency information
• Strong against a ciphertext-only attack but easily broken with a
known plaintext attack
Polyalphabetic Ciphers

• Polyalphabetic substitution cipher

• Improves on the simple monoalphabetic technique by using different
monoalphabetic substitutions as one proceeds through the plaintext
message

All these techniques have the following features

in common:
• A set of related monoalphabetic substitution
rules is used
• A key determines which particular rule is
chosen for a given transformation
Vigenère Cipher

• Best known and one of the simplest polyalphabetic substitution

ciphers
• In this scheme the set of related monoalphabetic substitution rules
consists of the 26 Caesar ciphers with shifts of 0 through 25
• Each cipher is denoted by a key letter which is the ciphertext letter
that substitutes for the plaintext letter a
Example of Vigenère Cipher

• To encrypt a message, a key is needed that is as long as the

message
• Usually, the key is a repeating keyword
• For example, if the keyword is deceptive, the message “we are
discovered save yourself” is encrypted as:
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext: ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ
Vigenère Autokey System

• A keyword is concatenated with the plaintext itself to provide a

running key
• Example:
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext: ZICVTWQNGKZEIIGASXSTSLVVWLA
• Even this scheme is vulnerable to cryptanalysis
• Because the key and the plaintext share the same frequency distribution
of letters, a statistical technique can be applied
Vernam Cipher

ultimate defense is to use a key as long as the plaintext

with no statistical relationship to it
invented by AT&T engineer Gilbert Vernam in 1918
originally proposed using a very long but eventually repeating key
Vernam Cipher
One-Time Pad

• Improvement to Vernam cipher proposed by an Army Signal Corp

officer, Joseph Mauborgne
• Use a random key that is as long as the message so that the key
need not be repeated
• Key is used to encrypt and decrypt a single message and then is
discarded
• Each new message requires a new key of the same length as the
new message
• Scheme is unbreakable
• Produces random output that bears no statistical relationship to the
plaintext
• Because the ciphertext contains no information whatsoever about the
plaintext, there is simply no way to break the code
Difficulties
• The one-time pad offers complete security but, in practice, has
two fundamental difficulties:
• There is the practical problem of making large quantities of random keys
• Any heavily used system might require millions of random characters on a regular
basis
• Mammoth key distribution problem
• For every message to be sent, a key of equal length is needed by both sender and
receiver
• Because of these difficulties, the one-time pad is of limited utility
• Useful primarily for low-bandwidth channels requiring very high security
• The one-time pad is the only cryptosystem that exhibits perfect
secrecy (see Appendix F)
Transposition Ciphers

now consider classical transposition or permutation ciphers

these hide the message by rearranging the letter order
without altering the actual letters used
can recognise these since have the same frequency distribution as
the original text
Rail Fence Cipher

• Simplest transposition cipher

• Plaintext is written down as a sequence of diagonals and then
read off as a sequence of rows
• To encipher the message “meet me after the toga party” with a
rail fence of depth 2, we would write:
mematrhtgpry
etefeteoaat
Encrypted message is:
MEMATRHTGPRYETEFETEOAAT
Row Transposition Cipher

• Is a more complex transposition

• Write the message in a rectangle, row by row, and read the
message off, column by column, but permute the order of the
columns
• The order of the columns then becomes the key to the algorithm
Key: 4312 5 67
Plaintext: atta c kp
ostpone
dunt i l t
w o a mx y z
Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ
Columnar Transposition.
Product Ciphers

• ciphers using substitutions or transpositions are not secure because

of language characteristics
• hence consider using several ciphers in succession to make harder,
but:
• two substitutions make a more complex substitution
• two transpositions make more complex transposition
• but a substitution followed by a transposition makes a new much harder
cipher
• this is bridge from classical to modern ciphers
Rotor Machines

• before modern ciphers, rotor machines were most common complex

ciphers in use
• widely used in WW2
• German Enigma, Allied Hagelin, Japanese Purple
• implemented a very complex, varying substitution cipher
• used a series of cylinders, each giving one substitution, which rotated
and changed after each letter was encrypted
• with 3 cylinders have 263=17576 alphabets
Hagelin Rotor Machine
Rotor Machines
Steganography

• an alternative to encryption
• hides existence of message
• using only a subset of letters/words in a longer message marked in some way
• using invisible ink
• hiding in LSB in graphic image or sound file
• has drawbacks
• high overhead to hide relatively few info bits
• advantage is can obscure encryption use
Steganography
 • Character marking
• Selected letters of printed or
typewritten text are over-written in
pencil
• The marks are ordinarily not visible
unless the paper is held at an angle
to bright light
Other Steganography
Techniques • Invisible ink
• A number of substances can be used
for writing but leave no visible trace
until heat or some chemical is
applied to the paper
• Pin punctures
• Small pin punctures on selected
letters are ordinarily not visible
unless the paper is held up in front
of a light
• Typewriter correction ribbon
• Used between lines typed with a
black ribbon, the results of typing
with the correction tape are visible
only under a strong light
 Summary

• Symmetric Cipher Model • Substitution techniques

• Cryptography • Caesar cipher
• Cryptanalysis and Brute-Force • Monoalphabetic ciphers
Attack • Playfair cipher
• Transposition techniques • Hill cipher
• Polyalphabetic ciphers
• Rotor machines
• One-time pad
• Steganography