MODERN CRYPTOGRAPHY

Srishti Adhikari, Manisha Kunwar

Department of Computer Engineering,
Nepal College of Information Technology
Lalitpur, Nepal
[email protected]

Abstract: Modern Cryptography refers to the study of secure communication techniques that are used in the digital age. It involves the use of
mathematical algorithms and protocols to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of information as it is transmitted over networks or stored
on devices. This paper dives into the techniques used in modern-day cryptography to aid in data secrecy. It outlines different approaches used in modern-
day cryptography techniques. It majorly informs us about different approaches to cryptography, their types, and the algorithms used. We have explored
multiple cryptography techniques such as symmetric, asymmetric, and touched hashing as well. We have dived into their working mechanisms and
algorithms to complement the covered topics.

Index Terms: Plain Text, Cryptography, Cipher Text, Keys, Encryption, Decryption.

Introduction communication process. If it is altered it must be reflected

accordingly on the receiving end.
Cryptography is a branch of cryptology, the science that deals with
secure communications. It can be stated as the operation, study, and Non-repudiation: The source should not back off from taking
scrutiny of tools and techniques which aid in concealing important accountability for the deliverance of the message. The source must
information from adversaries. take full responsibility for the message it produces with its
Cryptography mainly deals with securing data that might be easily integrity.
accessed by actors with malicious intent. Cryptography utilizes
multiple algorithms and tools to obfuscate the input data to the point History
where it cannot be easily recognized.
Here is a table of important events in history that is presented as a
One of the central concepts in modern cryptography is the use of timeline. In the table below we can see the time, during which
mathematical algorithms, known as cryptographic protocols, to period the algorithms came into existence or equivalent. From the
encrypt and decrypt information. These protocols use mathematical research performed by, we can see a brief on the evolution of
functions and keys to convert plaintext (readable information) into cryptography.[2]
ciphertext (unreadable information), and vice versa. The security of
these protocols depends on the exertion of cracking mathematical According to their research, we can understand that the
cryptography system was started in 1900 BC. Evidence
complications or finding patterns in large amounts of data.
demonstrates that at that time, the carving of cipher text (Jumbled
Another important area of modern cryptography is the usage of letters) was done on a rock in Egypt. After that in 1500 BC in
public-key cryptography, which allows for the secure exchange of Mesopotamia, secret information was stored on clay slabs. In 500
information without the need for a shared secret key. In public key BC, the Scytale device was used by the Spartans for the conveyance
cryptography, each user has a set of two keys: a public key for and reception of surreptitious information. At that time, a
message encryption and a private key for message decryption. This transposition cipher was used. After that at 800 AD., the frequency
allows users to securely exchange messages without the need to meet analysis technique was in use to break monoalphabetic ciphers.
in person or share a secret key. Polyalphabetic ciphers were in use in 1467 AD. From 1400 to 1600,
cryptography was in use for managing religious and political
Objectives conflicts. In the 19th century, the Vigenère cipher (by Charles
Babbage) and Playfair Cipher (by Charles Wheatstone, 1854) were
In addition to confidentiality, cryptography must also achieve the used. [7]
following things: [6]
While entering the 20th century, the most influential and effective
Authenticity: The source of the message must be clear to the cipher was discovered and came into use. The Teleprinter cipher
receiver. It should not be altered during the overall communication was introduced by Gilbert Vernam (1917). The VIC cipher was
cycle. introduced in 1950. In 1975, DES was designed for secured
electronic communication in financial firms. Diffie-Hellman key
Integrity: It should be possible to verify that the message
exchange was introduced in 1976, whereas PGP (Pretty Good
acknowledged has not been transformed in any way during the
Privacy) was introduced in 1991. AES (Advanced Encryption Stan-
Dard has been used since 2001). Not only in the highly secure facilities but it also affects our
everyday lives. From our everyday social media accounts to bank
Contrast between Classical and Modern Cryptography
accounts, everything relies on cryptography for its security.
The approach to classical cryptography is a bit different from current
All of the cryptographic tools such as hash, encryption, and
modern practices. As there was no computational power during those
M.A.C (Message Authentication Code) work together to provide
times. They had to rely on manual obfuscation techniques.
security.
Some of the techniques used during the classical period were
substitution and transposition of the letters used to deliver the
message. The actual working mechanism was kept a secret as it Modern Cryptographic Techniques
would make it easier to reverse the encrypted message during the
There are multiple types of cryptography techniques and tools.
delivery.
Here is a list of the most common concepts:
In contrast, modern cryptographic techniques are where complex
I.
algorithms are produced. And millions of computations are done per Hash Functions
second making it practically impossible to manually perform such
calculations. Hash functions are a set of algorithms that produce a fixed length
output for any given input bytes. The produced output is only a
Let us look at the differences between classical and modern fraction of the size of the input data. Produced output bytes are not
cryptography. reversible to the original input data. And the output produced
should never repeat for unique input. But it should always produce
Classical Cryptography Modern Cryptography the same output for the given input.[5]

Operation is performed to the The operation is performed at Working Principles:

digits and letters directly. the unit level of data, such as The hash functions are all mathematical logics that operate on two
bits and bytes. fixed-sized blocks of input. After the application of the algorithm,
it produces a fixed-length output.
Operating algorithms were Cryptographic algorithms
kept secret to ensure data might be made public to The size of the blocks is highly dependent on the algorithm used. It
safety. everyone. As the can vary anywhere between 128 bits to 512 bits.
computational complexity will
make things harder to reverse
the cipher text.

It requires all the tools and Only the encryption/decryption

techniques used in a key needs to be kept secret with
cryptosystem to be the sender and receiver. The image is taken from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cryptography/cryptography_hash_functions.htm

confidential. The algorithm first takes the seed value and the initial input to
produce output bytes. And then repeatedly uses the output bytes
Examples of Algorithms: Examples of cryptography from each preceding function iteration to calculate new bytes until
Substitution, Transposition, types are Hash function, no input bytes are left.
etc. Symmetric Encryption,
Asymmetric Encryption, etc. This is just a vague generalization of hash functions but we must
understand the working algorithm.
Uses For the above-mentioned reason, even a single-bit input difference
will yield a completely different hash output.
Cryptography is used almost everywhere in this day and age. There
is almost no place where cryptography is not used. From IoT to the Properties:
servers that provide 24/7 communications, cryptography is used in
some form or another. • Preimage resistance: This property of the hash function
should make it computationally infeasible to reverse the hash
Even the algorithms to secure the bits are built into the chips
output back to its input. In other words, if someone tries to
themselves, for example, C.P.U, R.A.M. It contains some
convert the output back to the input, it should be close to
mechanisms to prevent the malicious actor from gaining
impossible to reverse.
unauthorized access to its internal processing data. Even though it is
built into the OS itself, the point still stands.
 • Second Pre-Image Resistance: This property of any hash In other words, encryption is the process of scrambling the clear
function states that for any given input and its hash value. It text in such a way that the obtained output cannot be understood by
should be extremely hard to find the same hash with different the party other than who is authorized to read it.
input values.
Operating Principle:
• Collision Resistance: This property of the hash function ensures
that it should be hard to have two different inputs of varying Here is a general overview of how the encryption process works.
lengths that produce the same output hash value. In other words, Please note that this is just a simple explanation of the steps
this property ensures that the hash function is collision-free. involved in encryption. The actual implementation depends on the
algorithm used and its mode of operation.
Popular Hash Functions Step #1. Generate a random nonce to randomize the output of the
The modern-day hash functions that are widely accepted and algorithm.
implemented are: Step #2. Generate a random encryption key or derive it from the
user input such as a password.
1. Message Digest (MD) Step #3. Apply multiple rounds of mathematical calculations or
algorithms such as transposition, shifting and XORring.
It is a family suite of multiple hash functions such as MD2, MD4, Step #4. Produce the cipher text to be used later for decryption.
MD5, and MD6. The implementation standard is also mentioned
in the Internet Standard RFC 1321. The MD5 hash function was Types
very popular in the recent past. The output of the hash functions in
this family includes a fixed length 128-bit value. It was generally There are two types of encryption in modern cryptography. They
used to generate the integrity verification hash for software are explained below:
distributions.
However, in 2004 cases of hash collisions were detected by security i. Symmetric Key Encryption
experts. Hence, it is no longer considered secure for scaled Symmetric encryption is the category of encryption that utilizes the
enterprise usage. same key for both encryption and the decryption process. In this
2. Secure Hash Functions (SHA) type of encryption one single key is used for both encryption and
decryption.
SHA is also a family of four hash functions. The four hash
functions in SHA are SHA-0, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3. The Here is a list of common encryption algorithms in symmetric key
SHA family has varying bits output in each of them. encryption: DES, 3DES, AES, IDEA, RC4, and RC5.
SHA-0 did not get as popular as other recent variants. It is because We can denote the encryption and decryption process with a
SHA-0 had many issues. Out of which, many issues were solved in symmetric algorithm as:
SHA-1 and it is the most used version of SHA. Even the SSL suite
uses SHA-1 for its proper functionality. However, a method to EK(M) = C (the cipher text)
generate collisions was found in 2005 for SHA-1. Which made the DK(C) = M (the plain text)
experts make new versions of SHA for long-term reliability. Hence,
SHA-2 and SHA-3 are introduced as recent additions. In symmetric key encryption, two modes or operation are used. The
mode of operation is how the algorithm operates with the input
3. RIPEMD (RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message data. The two modes of operation used in symmetric key encryption
Digest) are described below:
It is a hash function that was generated by the open research
• Stream Cipher
community of the European Hash Function. The family includes
RIPEMD, RIPEMD-128, and RIPEMD-160. In this mode of operation, the input data is directly processed
The algorithm for RIPEMD-128 uses the same principles which byte by byte. The algorithm directly takes the input character
were used in MD4. Which was produced as a result to solve the and converts it into the cipher text using the specified
issues and vulnerabilities in the original RIPEMD implementation. encryption key. Due to the nature of this algorithm, the
The latest addition to the suite is RIPEMD-160 is the most widely operation uses 8 bits (in AES) to perform encryption.
used version because it has improved in many different areas of its
Stream ciphers are generally complex but in contrast, they are
implementation.
not as secure as block ciphers. But they are fast compared to
II. Encryption block ciphers because they deal with the input data directly to
produce cipher texts. Some common examples of stream
Encryption is the process of obtaining the ciphertext after applying
ciphers are Salsa20, RC4, etc.
an encryption algorithm with an encryption key to the plaintext to
conceal insecure information from everyone. • Block Cipher
In this mode of operation, the input data is broken down into blocks The decryption of the AES encryption is performing the same
of bits ranging from 64 bits to 512 bits or more. The algorithm breaks above operations but in reverse order.
down the plaintext into blocks of bits and applies multiple rounds of
Example: The AES encryption example shown below is performed
arithmetic operations such as transposition, shifting, and XORing.
online here (https://www.devglan.com/online-tools/aes-
The internal working mechanism for each algorithm might vary but encryption-decryption). The output is Base64 encoded string which
the general principle remains the same. Examples of block ciphers can be converted to actual byte output if we wish.
are AES, DES, and 3DES.
Let us look at the most widely used symmetric key encryption
algorithm (AES).
AES (Advanced Encryption standard)
AES is the most advanced and cryptographically secure algorithm
used for symmetric encryption. It is also
sometimes known as Rijndael encryption because it is based on the
algorithm of the same name. It is faster than most other algorithms
such as Feistel, 3DES, etc.
Operation: The AES is a bit different from other algorithms because
it breaks down the input into blocks of bits. However, it performs
calculations on bytes rather than bits. Meaning the 128-bit block will
only be treated as a 16-byte block for all the operations.
Also, in the 128-bit mode, the algorithm does a 10-round calculation,
12 rounds for 192-bit keys, and 14 rounds for 256-bit keys. Each
round of operation will have a different key for its operation known
as a round key.
Let’s take an example of 128 bits (16 bytes) to see how the operations
are performed in AES.
Byte substitution: The 16 bytes are replaced by observing a static
table provided in the design of the algorithm. The resulting output ii. Asymmetric Key Encryption
will be a matrix of 4x4.
Asymmetric encryption is also sometimes referred to as Public Key
Shiftrows: In this step of the operation each row of the matrix moved encryption. It is called so because in this mode of encryption a pair
to the left. If the values do not lie in the table, then they are inserted of keys are used. One key is used for encrypting the data and the
to the other side while shifting. Here are the steps which are other is used for decryption.
performed during the shiftrows:
In this type of encryption, the plaintext is generally encrypted using
● The very 1st row is not altered (shift).
the Public Key and later the Private Key is used for the decryption
● The 2nd row is altered (shift) by one byte or one row.
process. The asymmetric encryption type also includes multiple
● The 3rd row is altered (shift) by two places to the left.
algorithms. The usage of one type of algorithm entirely depends on
● The 4th row is moved three places to the left.
what you want to use the mode of encryption for.
After performing the above operations, the resulting matrix is a new
matrix with identical contents but shifted according to one another. The first public key algorithm to be publicly disclosed was the
Diffie Hellman key exchange. After some time, the RSA (Rivest
MixColumns: This is another step in the AES encryption operation.
Shamir Addleman) algorithm was also publicly made available.
Each column is now converted by utilizing a mathematical function.
The function receipts four bytes from each column and produces a
Uses
new output after applying mathematics, which replaces the main
Asymmetric key encryption is generally used to encrypt and send
column. Another matrix consists of 16 bytes to collect the result.
plaintext from the public domain for example PGP. It can also be
Addroundkey: This is the last operation in the AES encryption. Now used to create digital signatures by using the private key during the
the algorithm considers the 16 bytes as 128 bits. Then, an XOR encryption process. In fact, digital signatures are created exactly
operation is performed between the bytes and the round key. If this this way.
is the ending round then the ciphertext is given out else the process In practice asymmetric encryption is used only to encrypt short
is repeated. plain texts, this is because the algorithm is inherently slow. It will
not be practical to use the RSA algorithm to encrypt larger plaintext medium.
for normal usage.
Encryption
So, in practice, a hybrid approach is used whenever asymmetric
This is the step where the actual plain text is converted to the cipher
encryption is required. The faster symmetric encryption is carried out
text. The process involved in this step are:
to encrypt the information and later the asymmetric algorithm is used
to encrypt the key used for the encryption in symmetric encryption. ● The public key used for encryption is identified.
● The public key is used to encrypt the plaintext
There are multiple types of algorithms for asymmetric key
encryption: RSA, DSA ECC. Let us look at how the RSA algorithm Decryption
works.
The decryption of the encrypted cipher text obtained from the
RSA (Rivest Shamir Addleman) above step can be done using the private key. The private key is the
key pair of the public key used to encrypt the plain text.
This algorithm was advanced by Ron Rivest, Leonard Addleman, and
Adi Shamir at MIT in 1977. And today it is the most widely used
III. Decryption
algorithm in asymmetric key cryptography. It is fast and secure in its
mode of operation. Decryption is the process of taking encoded or encrypted data and
converting it back into its original form. This is done with a
Operating Principles
decryption key, which is used to reverse the process of encryption.
The working mechanism of RSA is fairly simple to understand. It is the reverse process, converting the encrypted data (cipher text)
However, the actual computation involved is rather complex as it into its original form (normal text).
involves prime numbers and modulo operation.
We can break down the overall operation into four simple steps to Preferences of Cryptography Types
understand it better. From the above sections, we learned that there are multiple
Key generation approaches to cryptography such as hashing, encryption, digital
signatures, etc.
The first step to encryption with RSA is key generation. The key
generation logic is shown in the image below: Let us look at the comparisons of each encryption type. [2]
Hash Functions

Hash functions Variants Roun Hash Security

ds Valu
e
(bits)
MD MD2 18 128 Non
MD4 3 128 collision
MD5 64 128 impervious
MD6 Varies 0-
512
SHA SHA-0 80 160 SHA-2 is
SHA-1 80 160 secure
SHA-2 64/80 256/
(256/512) 24 512
SHA-3 1600
RIPEMD RIPEMD 48 128 RIPEMD-
RIPEMD128 64 128 1 60 is
RIPEMD160 80 160 extensively
RIPEMD 256 RI 64 256 utilized
Image is taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(cryptosystem) PEMD320 80 320 and
protected
Key distribution
This is the next step in the operation of RSA, the generated keys must
be distributed for interested parties to use. If someone wants to send
Symmetric Algorithms
a message then the person must use the public key to encrypt the
plaintext. The exchange of public keys must take place in a secure
 Symmetric Block / Key / Security https://wachemo-elearning.net/courses/31781/lessons/chapter-
key Stream Encryption seven-data-security-and-integrity/topic/7-3-cryptography/
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