2021 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Computer Applications (ICPECA)

Improved Design of DES Algorithm Based on

Symmetric Encryption Algorithm
2021 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Computer Applications (ICPECA) | 978-1-7281-9004-4/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICPECA51329.2021.9362619

Wang Yihan Li Yongzhen*

Network Communication and Information Security Network Communication and Information Security
Lab.Dept. of Computer Science & Technology Lab.Dept. of Computer Science & Technology
Yanbian University Yanbian University
Yanji, China Yanji, China
e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
*Corresponding author

Abstract—To address issues in security & the threat posed using key encryption. It is based on a symmetric algorithm
to the DES algorithm by brute force cracking, as well as the using 56-bit keys. DES is a typical representative of block
low efficiency of the 3DES algorithm, I propose extending the ciphers. Because the key length of the DES algorithm is too
length of the DES algorithm's key. First, change the block short, the DES algorithm is no longer secure, and currently
length of the DES algorithm from 64 bits to 128 bits and DES has been replaced by AES[2].
expand the key length of the DES algorithm to double length;
secondly, iterative encryption is performed according to the Based on research above, this article will provide an
new plaintext grouping and the expanded key length. The two effective solution for brute force cracking on DES: Both keys
groups are iteratively encrypted, and after every single are used to encrypt two pieces of plain text, and some data
iteration the two sets of R part data obtained from this round where in the two encryption processes are controlled during
of encryption are exchanged, and then the next round of the encryption process. Based on the encryption results
iteration; finally, the improved DES algorithm is compared during the iteration of the encryption algorithm, the DES key
with the DES algorithm and the 3DES algorithm by length has been extended. The security of DES has been
experiment. The results showing that the operating efficiency enhanced and compared with the improved algorithm 3DES
of the improved DES algorithm is better than 3DES algorithm. algorithm of DES, the efficiency will be higher than 3DES,
Therefore, the improved algorithm is proposed here greatly and the security will not be inferior to 3DES.
improves the security of the algorithm under the premise of
ensuring operating efficiency and has good application value.
II. RELATED TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Keywords— DES, key expansion, iterative algorithm
A. Symmetric encryption algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION Symmetric encryption algorithm is an earlier encryption
algorithm and the technology is relatively mature. In the
With the rapidly development of computer information
algorithm, the sender needs to perform the special
technology, human society has entered the era of
encryption algorithm to process the plaintext and the key to
informatization, users are paying more and more attention to
make it unrecognizable ciphertext and transmit it. After
the security of information while using the network, which
received the ciphertext, the receivers have to use the same
promotes the development of encrypted information. DES is
key and the inverse operation of the encryption algorithm to
a typical representative of block ciphers and the first standard
process the ciphertext to obtain the corresponding plaintext.
algorithm being published. At present, because the key
In a symmetric encryption algorithm, both parties of the
length of the DES algorithm is too short, the DES algorithm
communication are use the same key for encryption and
is no longer secure and is gradually being replaced by AES.
decryption operations. The characteristics of the symmetric
However, in order to make DES, which is an excellent
encryption algorithm are algorithm disclosure, small amount
encryption algorithm, continue to play its role, scholars have
of calculation, fast encryption speed, and high encryption
made endless improvements to DES.
efficiency, but the disadvantage is that both parties of the
DES (Data Encryption Algorithm, DEA) encryption communication have to keep the key that only they know ,
algorithm is the most widely used data encryption system. It which make the key management difficulty, especially in
was established by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) the environment of multi-person communication, the
in 1977, which is now the National Institute of Standards and number of keys increases sharply, giving the key
Technology (National Institute of Standards and Technology, management a huge burden.
NIST) adopted as the Federal Information Processing
Symmetric encryption algorithms are mainly includes
Standard46. What we pointed by DES actually refers to Data
the following contents:
Encryption Algorithm[1].
DES algorithm, 3DES algorithm, TDEA algorithm,
Symmetric encryption algorithm is an earlier type of data
Blowfish algorithm, RC5 algorithm, IDEA algorithm[3].
encryption algorithm, which has advantages of fast
encryption speed and high encryption efficiency. The data
encryption standard is a symmetric encryption algorithm

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 B. Principle of DES encryption algorithm discarded.
DES is a symmetric encryption algorithm. It has two Step2 After discarding the check digit, the sub-key has 56
inputs, plain texts and keys. The length of the plaintext and bits in total and the 56-bit sub-key is replaced by selection 1,
the keys are both 64 bits, and 56 of them are valid keys, and the result obtained is still 56 bits.
the remaining 8 bits are the parity bit[4]. The following figure
is flow of the schematic diagram of the DES algorithm. Step3 Divide the obtained 56-bits sub-keys into two
groups with 28 bits of each and move the two groups of sub-
keys to the left circular manner.
Step4: The shifted two sets of 28bits data are replaced by
selection 2, each group of 24bits data is filtered, and the two
screening sets of data are combined into 48bits as the subkey
of the i-th round.

Fig. 1. Example of a figure caption.

The processing steps for plaintext are as follows [5]:

Step1 Enter the plaintext into groups according to the
64bits packet length, and then rearrange the 64bits data
block P through the initial permutation IP matrix.
Step2 Use the f function to perform 16 rounds of
iterative transformation of P after the initial permutation IP
matrix transformation, and each round of transformation
needs to use a different subkey.
Step3 The 16th round output has 64bits, which is a
function of the input plaintext and the key. It produces a
64bits data block as the result of this group of encryption
through the inverse initial replacement IP-1 effect of the
initial replacement IP.
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of key generation
The formula for the i-th round of encryption above
process can be expressed as:
III. IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE DES ALGORITHM
LEi REi-1  Because the DES algorithm key is too short, someone
proposed the 3DES algorithm.3DES is using three different
keys to perform "encryption-decryption-encryption" on plain
REi LEi-1ͰF(RELˈK)  text. However, the processing speed of the 3DES algorithm
is not fast, and it’s rarely be used for new purposes except for
the case of paying special attention to backward
About the implementation details of the DES algorithm
compatibility [7]. This improvement uses the idea of the
and the change of the f function:
3DES algorithm to extend the key length without losing
Step1: The R0 is extended by E box, and the length of R0 efficiency.
is changed from 32 bits to 48 bits.
A. Several ideas on improving the security of the DES
Step2: XOR the R0 and the 48-bit subkey after the E-box
expansion. algorithm
In fact, increasing the key length to enhance DES
Step3: R0 after XOR operation with the sub items security is the easiest way. However, using only two keys to
undergoes S-box conversion. encrypting DES twice cannot improve the security of the
Step4: The R0 has undergone the S box transformation is DES algorithm. Because it’s assumed that two keys K1 and
subjected to P box transformation. K2 are used to encrypt the plaintext, the encryption process
is:
The following figure shows sub-key generation process,
the specific steps are as follows [6]:
E Ek2(Ek1(P)) 
Step1: The initial key of the DES algorithm has 64 bits,
which is divided into a matrix. Since the 8th bit of each row Then there must be a K3 such as:
in the matrix is the check digit, the 8th bit of each row is

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 Ek3 Ek2 (Ek1(P))  respectively encrypted with two different sets of keys Kl
and Kr.
An algorithm above obviously does not play any Step4 The two sets of data obtained after each iteration:
substantial role in enhancing the security of the DES the Ll part in the left packet L and the Lr part in the right
algorithm. packet R are exchanged, and the exchanged result is used as
Another idea is to select two keys to encrypt the odd and the input of the next iteration to continue encryption. By
even DES packets respectively. The specific implementation analogy, the results of each iteration are exchanged.
steps are as follows: Step5 Perform 16 rounds of iterative transformation
The DES algorithm divides every 64-bit plaintext into a according to process above and merge the transformation
group. We can select two sets of different keys for the odd results into a data block with a length of 128 bits as the
and even arrays in the plaintext group to encrypt the plaintext result of this group of encryptions.
group respectively. This method does improve the security of So DESnew is expressed in a general form. For the
the DES algorithm, but the difficulty of cracking is only encryption algorithm of round i:
doubled, and the safety research of DES has not made
breakthrough progress yet.
It being said that if we want to use two keys for  Lri Lli 
encryption to achieve the security of the DES algorithm, we
need to improve the encryption process of the DES algorithm.
In order to make the results of the two encryption processes Rli Lli-1ͰF(RlLˈK) 
unpredictable, it is the best way to communicate the two
encryption processes. After two encryption processes are
communicated, the generated ciphertext becomes a whole, TABLE I. DES ALGORITHM AND DES IMPROVED ALGORITHM
and If they are not communicated, the resulting ciphertext COMPARISON TABLE
can distinguish which data blocks were encrypted by two Comparison of DES and DESnew
different keys, which make it difficult to achieve the desired parameter
DES DESnew
effect the security of the DES algorithm. Plain text packet 64 bits
128bits
length
B. Basic principles of improved algorithm Key required for
1 2
encryption
Each plaintext packet Each plaintext group is
is encrypted only encrypted with two sets
Encryption times
once by the DES of DES algorithm
algorithm simultaneously

IV. ALGORITHM EFFICIENCY

Algorithm efficiency refers to the execution time of the
algorithm, and the execution time of the algorithm needs to
be measured by the time consumed when the program
compiled according to the algorithm runs on computers.
From the perspective of algorithm structure and
theoretical analysis, the execution efficiency of the improved
DES algorithm proposed in this article will be similar to DES
algorithm itself. In the improved algorithm, although the
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of DES improved algorithm improved algorithm encryption requires two DES
encryptions, the improvement is the encryption algorithm
Figure 3 shows the main encryption process of the reads a 128-bit data stream while reading. Compared with
improved DES algorithm. DES reading a 64-bit data stream, the improved encryption
Step1 The length of the plaintext packet is changed from algorithm and the DES encryption algorithm are both
the original 64bits to 128bits. perform when encrypting the same block of plaintext.
Encrypted once, so theoretically, the improved encryption
Step2 Divide the data of each group of 128 bits into the algorithm and the DES algorithm has the same encryption
left group L and the right group R, each group is 64 bits. efficiency.
Step3 The left group L and the right group R are

TABLE II. COMPARISON OF ALGORITHM EFFICIENCY

Algorithm efficiency comparison table

Algorithm Run time of encrypted 10K
Run time of encrypted 100K files/ms Run time of encrypted 1000K files/ms
files/ms
DES 68,70,81,83,82 293,282,294,291,286 2326,2314,2396,2312,2288
3DES 80,84,86,97,85 353,344,344,361,367 2952,2828,2995,2846,2925
DESnew 108,111,114,123,108 532,613,696,642,641 5036,4905,4926,5115,5167

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 the security of the algorithm from the three aspects of
After averaging the 5 data obtained, the following increasing the packet length, key length and the exchange of
statistical chart is obtained according to the table II grid. each round of iterative results. The algorithm efficiency is
much higher than the 3DES algorithm, and the security is
compared with the original DES. The algorithm is still better.
Therefore, the method proposed here has nice application
value. In the future research, further research will be
conducted on the efficiency of the algorithm to make a
better improve of algorithm.

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V. CONCLUSION Algorithm. 2015, 6(1):144-146.
The improved DES algorithm proposed here increases

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