CRYPTOGRAPHY

Secret Key
Cryptography
 Secret Key Cryptography
• Both encryption and decryption keys are the same and are kept secret
• The secret key must be known at both ends to perform encryption or
decryption (Fig)
• Secret Key algorithms are fast and they are used for
encrypting\decrypting high volume data
• Secret key cryptography is classified into two types
• Block Ciphers
• Stream Ciphers
 Transposition Cipher
• Easy to understand, but if properly used,
produces ciphertext that is difficult to
decipher
• Rearranges values within a block to create
ciphertext
• Can be done at the bit level or at the byte
(character) level
• To make the encryption even stronger, the
keys and block sizes can be made much
larger
Principles of Information 3
Security, Fourth Edition
 Exclusive OR (XOR)
• Function of Boolean algebra; two bits
are compared
– If two bits are identical, result is binary
0
– If two bits not identical, result is binary
1
• A very simple symmetric cipher that
is used in many applications where
security is not a defined requirement
Principles of Information 4
Security, Fourth Edition
 Table 8-3 XOR Truth
Table

Principles of Information 5
Security, Fourth Edition
 Vernam Cipher
• Developed at AT&T
• Uses set of characters once per encryption process
• To perform:
– The pad values are added to numeric values that
represent the plaintext that needs to be encrypted
– Each character of the plaintext is turned into a number
and a pad value for that position is added
– The resulting sum for that character is then converted
back to a ciphertext letter for transmission
– If the sum of the two values exceeds 26, then 26 is
subtracted from the total

Principles of Information 6
Security, Fourth Edition
Book or Running Key Cipher
• Uses text in book as key to decrypt a
message
• Ciphertext contains codes representing
page, line, and word numbers
• Algorithm is the mechanical process of:
– Looking up the references from the
ciphertext
– Converting each reference to a word by
using the ciphertext’s value and the key
• Typical sources are dictionaries and
Principles of Information 7
thesauruses
Security, Fourth Edition
 Stream Ciphers
Plaintext bits

Encryption Ciphertext bits

Keystream bits

• A stream cipher is a type of symmetric encryption in

which input data is encrypted one bit (sometime one
byte) at a time
• Examples of stream ciphers include SEAL, TWOPRIME,
RC4, A5
 Stream Ciphers
Plaintext bits (P)
Ciphertext bits(C)
Seed key Encryption
Keystream bits (K)
Key
Generator

• To encrypt plaintext stream

– A random set of bits is generated from a seed key, called
keystream which is as long as the message
– Keystream bits are added modulo 2 to plaintext to form the
ciphertext stream
• To decrypt ciphertext stream
– use the same seed key to generate the same keystream used in
encryption
– Add the keystream modulo 2 to the ciphertext to retrieve the
plaintext
– i.e. C = P ⊕ K ⇒ C ⊕ K = (P ⊕ K) ⊕ K = P
 Block Cipher
Plaintext block Encryption Ciphertext block
e.g. 64 bits E e.g. 64 bits

Key K

• A block cipher is a type of symmetric encryption which operates on

blocks of data. Modern block ciphers typically use a block length of
128 bits or more
• Examples of block ciphers include DES, AES, RC6, and IDEA
• A block cipher breaks message into fixed sized blocks
• Takes one block (plaintext) at a time and transform it into another
block of the same length using a user provided secret key
• Decryption is performed by applying the reverse transformation to
the ciphertext block using the same secret key
• Most symmetric block ciphers are based on a Feistel Cipher Structure
(Explained in next slides)
 Properties of Good Ciphers:
Confusion and Diffusion
• In cryptography, confusion and diffusion are two properties of the
operation of a secure cipher which were identified by Shannon in
his paper, "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems" published
in 1949
• Confusion refers to making the relationship between the key and
the ciphertext as complex and involved as possible
• Substitution is one of the mechanism for primarily confusion
• Diffusion refers to the property that redundancy in the statistics
of the plaintext is "dissipated" in the statistics of the ciphertext
• Transposition (Permutation) is a technique for diffusion
• Associate dependency of bits of the output to the bits of input
• In a cipher with good diffusion, flipping an input bit should change
each output bit with a probability of one half
 Motivation for Feistel Cipher
Structure
💧 In 1949, Claude Shannon also introduced the idea of
substitution-permutation (S-P) networks which form the basis of modern
block ciphers
💧 S-P networks are based on the two primitive cryptographic operations:
substitution (S-box) & permutation (P-box)
💧 provide confusion and diffusion of message
 Motivation for Feistel Cipher
Structure
• S-P network: a special form of ⊕
substitution-transposition product cipher
• Product cipher
– Two or more simple ciphers are performed in
sequence in such a way that the final result or
product is cryptographically stronger than any
of the component ciphers ⊕

• Feistel cipher
– In 1970’s, Horst Feistel (IBM T.J. Watson
Research Labs) invented a suitable (practical)
structure which adapted Shannon’s S-P ⊕
network
– Encryption and decryption use the same
structure
 Feistel Cipher Structure
Plaintext (2w bits)

L0 R0
Round 1
w bits w bits
Ideas for each round:
1. partition input block into two halves
Round 2
2. process through multiple rounds
which
perform a substitution on left data half
based on a round function of right
half &
subkey
3. then have permutation swapping
halves Round n
Ln Rn
w bits w bits

Ciphertext (2w bits)

 Feistel Cipher Design Principles
💧 Block size
– increasing size improves security, but slows cipher
💧 Key size
– increasing size improves security, makes exhaustive key searching
harder, but may slow cipher
💧 Number of rounds
– increasing number improves security, but slows cipher
💧 Subkey generation
– greater complexity can make analysis harder, but slows cipher
💧 Round function
– greater complexity can make analysis harder, but slows cipher
💧 Fast software en/decryption & ease of analysis
– are more recent concerns for practical use and testing
Feistel Cipher Decryption