International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET)

A New Symmetric Cryptosystem using

Randomized Parameters of SHA-512 and MD5
Hash Functions
T. Sivakumar
Assistant Professor (Sl.G), Department of Information Technology
PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

T. Anusha
Assistant Professor (Sr.Gr), Department of Computer Science and Engineering
PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract- The explosive growth of digital information places a high demand for information security. Information
security deals with securing the information from unauthorized access or misusing information either intentionally or
accidentally. Information may be represented in forms like text, audio, video, and image. The most widely used form of
information exchange is text documents. This paper presents a novel symmetric key cryptosystem to protect the text
messages communicated over the public network from unauthorized disclosure. To provide increased security with
reduced computational complexity, the encryption method uses the bitwise XOR operation with a larger key space
derived from the randomly generated additive constants used in Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-512) and sine constants of
Message Digest (MD-5) hash functions. The proposed method is safe against cryptanalysis attack and has good avalanche
effect. The method is sensitive with respect to the encryption key and satisfies both confusion and diffusion properties
significantly.

Keywords – Data Security, Symmetric Key Algorithm, Hash Functions, Cryptanalysis, Avalanche Effect

I. INTRODUCTION
Encryption is the process of converting a plaintext message into ciphertext which can be decoded back into the
original message using the secret key. There are several types of data encryption schemes which form the basis of
data confidentiality. Encryption schemes are generally based on either block or stream ciphers. Historically, the focus
of encryption has been on the use of symmetric encryption to provide confidentiality service [3]. In the last several
decades, other considerations such as authentication, integrity and digital signature have been included in the theory
and practice of cryptology. The public key cryptosystems are mainly used for key exchange, authentication, and
digital signature services in real time applications, because of high computational complexity. The symmetric key
cryptosystems are more popular to provide the confidentiality service. A single round of encryption offers inadequate
security while multiple rounds offer increased security with increased computational complexity. The SHA-512
additive constants represent the first sixty-four bits of the fractional parts of the cube roots of the first eighty prime
numbers and the constants used in MD5 represent the binary integer part of the sine (radians) value of the integers 0
to 64. These constants provide a randomized set of 64-bit patterns which should eliminate any regularity in the input
data [3]. In this paper, the random constants used in SHA-512 and MD5 hash functions are used as random key
stream key to encrypt text data.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
In Hill cipher algorithm, the inverse of the key metrics used for encrypting the plaintext does not always exist. If the
key matrix is not invertible, then encrypted text cannot be decrypted. Bibhudendra et al. [1], proposed a novel
Advanced Hill (AdvHill) cipher technique which uses an involutory matrix to encrypt data. Since the involutory
matrix is invertible, the computational complexity can be reduced by avoiding the process of finding the inverse of
the matrix at the time of decryption.
Jawahar Thakur et al. [2] provided a comparison between three symmetric key cryptographic algorithms such as
Data Encryptions Standard (DES), Advanced Encrypted Standard (AES), and Blowfish. The comparison takes into
consideration, the behavior and the performance of the algorithm when different data loads are used. The
comparison is made on the basis of the parameters such as speed, block size, and key size. Blowfish has a better

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 International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET)

performance than other encryption algorithms and AES showed poor performance results compared to other
algorithms since it requires more processing power. The characteristics of AES are its security and resistance against
attacks. The major characteristic of RC4 algorithm is its speed. Prabhudesai Keval Ketan et al. [4], developed a
hybrid cipher by combining the characteristics of the algorithms AES and RC4. This hybrid method is seen to have a
20% improved speed compared to the original AES and a higher security compared to the original RC4.
Rizvi et al. [5] analyzed the security issues of two popular symmetric cryptographic algorithms Blowfish and CAST
and then compared their efficiency for encrypting text, image, and audio with the AES algorithm across different
widely used Operating Systems. For text data, all algorithms run faster on Windows XP but Blowfish is the most
efficient and CAST run slower than AES. Blowfish encrypts images most efficiently on all three platforms. CAST
runs faster on Windows XP than AES but on Windows Vista and Windows7, AES and CAST perform at the similar
speed. For audio files, CAST performs better than Blowfish and AES on Windows XP but on Windows Vista and
Windows 7, there is no significant difference in performance of CAST and AES; however Blowfish encrypts audio
files at less speed.
Shashi Mehrotra Seth et al. [6] performed comparative analysis of the algorithms DES, AES, and RSA by
considering the parameters such as computation time, memory usage, and output byte. Based on the text files used
and the experimental result, the authors concluded that the DES algorithm consumes least encryption time and AES
algorithm has least memory usage while encryption time difference is very minor in case of AES and DES
algorithms. The RSA consumes longest encryption time and memory usage is also very high but output byte is least
in the case of RSA algorithm. Vishwagupta et al. [7] developed a cryptography algorithm based on the block cipher
concept using XOR and shifting operation. The algorithm takes less time when compared to the existing symmetric
algorithms such as DJSA and AES. To encrypt a text file of size 560 KB, the proposed method takes 0.28ms but the
DJSA and AES algorithms take 0.37ms and 0.35ms, respectively.
The hash algorithms such as MD5 (Message Digest 5) and SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) are frequently used to
convert the variable size input into fixed size output called digest. A hash function is defined as the mapping of bit
strings of an arbitrary finite length to strings of fixed length. A hash function (H) converts a variable-length block of
data M into an output of fixed-size hash value h = H(M). A change to any bit or bits in M results, with high
probability, in a change to the hash code [3, 4, 9, 10]. Abbas Cheddad et. al. [9] described a new way of encrypting
digital images with password protection using SHA-2 hash algorithm coupled with Fourier Transform and XOR
operation. S.M Seyedzade et. al. [10] introduced an image encryption algorithm based on SHA-512 hash function.
The entropy of the encrypted image is increased and both security and performance aspects are satisfactory with two
rounds. Other existing text encryption methods proposed by various others are found in [11, 12, 13].
The Message Digest (MD5) algorithm has four rounds and each round is repeated for 16 times. The MD5 algorithm
makes use of 64 constants each of size 32 bits constructed from the mathematical sine function. These constants
provide a randomized set of 32-bit patterns which should eliminate any regularity in the input data [3]. This
technique is adopted by the proposed method as random key to encrypt text messages.
The SHA-512 hash function has 80 rounds and each round makes uses a 64-bit additive constant Kt, where 0”W”
which is derived from the fractional parts of the cube roots of the first 80 prime numbers. These constants are used
to provide a randomized set of 64-bit patterns which should eliminate any regularity in the input data [3, 4]. This
technique is adopted by the proposed method as random key to encrypt text messages.
III.THE PROPOSED ENCRYPTION METHOD
The proposed symmetric key encryption method does block ciphering using XOR operation and extended key space
to encrypt the characters which includes alphabets, numerals, and special characters. The typical working model of
the proposed symmetric key encryption method is shown in Figure 1.

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 International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET)

Input Plaintext (PT) Input K,CLSn

Read ran[K%M]
Is length of PT is Input the padding
in multiples of 8 No character and append
characters? at the end of PT
CLSn

Yes
Read ran[(K+1)%M]
Replace each char with ASCII and
covert into binary equivalent (BPT)
CLSn
Split BPT into n blocks of size 64 bits

Read ran[(K+N-1)%M]
B1 B2 Bn
CLSn
XOR

XOR

XOR

C1 C2 Cn

Ciphertext (CT)

Figure 1. Block diagram of proposed encryption method

The plaintext message is divided into equal blocks of size 64 bits and block ciphering is applied to these blocks. If
the length of original message is not in multiples of 8 characters, then padding characters are appended to make sure
each block contains exactly 8 characters. The strength of any encryption algorithm is purely based on the key.
Hence, the proposed method uses two keys to provide a stronger security, namely ‘i’ which represents the ith key of
the key space and ‘cls’ which represents the number of bits circularly left/right shifted on the ith key. The circularly
left/right shifted ith key is used to encrypt the first block of plaintext and (i+1)th key to encrypt the second block of
plaintext and (i+2)th key to encrypt the third block of plaintext and so on. Therefore, the repeated words of plaintext
will not have the same ciphertext as the key differs for each block which provides a stronger security against
cryptanalysis. Also, the proposed method uses characters from the infeasible range for mapping the plaintext into
ciphertext which will confuse the information to intrude and remains as the strength of the suggested method.

Table – 1 Notations used in the Proposed Encryption Method

S.No. Notation Meaning

1 PT Plaintext
2 BPT Binary string representation of plaintext
3 Bi ith block of BPT, size of each Bi is 64 bits
4 K Kth key to be used for encryption of the first block
5 CLSn Circular left shift of n bits
6 ran[] random key stream generated from the constants of SHA-512 or MD5
hash function

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 International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET)

7 Ci ith block of binary representation of ciphertext

8 M Number of constants (64 for MD5 and 80 for SHA-512

A. Random Key Stream Generation using MD5

The Message Digest (MD5) algorithm is developed by Ron Rivest at MIT. There are four round and each round is
repeated for 16 times. The MD5 algorithm makes use of 64 constants, each of size 32 bits constructed from the
mathematical sine function. These constants provide a randomized set of 32 bit patterns which should eliminate any
regularities in the input data and to offer collision resistance [3]. In the proposed method, 64 bits have been
considered instead of 32 bits. The following is the algorithm to generate the constants used in MD5 algorithm which
is used as random key stream in the proposed method.

Step 1: Let Random[] be the array to store the generated keys.

Step 2: Repeat for i::1 to 64
2.1 Temp[i]Å(floor(abs(sin(Si)))*(2^64)
2.2 Random[i]ÅtoBinaryString(Temp[i])
2.3 Increment i
Step 3: Return the array Random[].

B. Random Key Stream Generation using SHA-512

The most widely used hash function has been the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and it is developed by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). There are 80 rounds and each round of SHA makes use of a 64-bit
additive constant Kt, where 0 ”W”7KHVHZRUGVUHSUHVHQWWKHILUVWELWVRIWKHIUDFWLRQDOSDUWVRIWKHFXEHURRWV
of the first 80 prime numbers. These constants provide a randomized set of 64-bit patterns which should eliminate
any regularities in the input data and to offer collision resistance [4]. The following is the algorithm to generate the
additive constants of SHA-512 algorithm. These constants are used as random key stream in the proposed method.

Step 1: Let the first 80 prime numbers are stored in the array Prime[ ].
Step 2: Let Random[ ] be the array to store the random bit stream.
Step 3: Repeat for i varies from 1 to 80
3.1 Temp1 Å cube_root(Prime[i])
3.2 Temp2 Å Temp1%1; //To extract the fractional part from Temp1
3.3 Key Å toBinaryString(Temp2)
3.4 Random[i] Å MSB 64-bits of (Key)
Step 4: Return the array Random[].

C. The Encryption Algorithm

Input : Plaintext (PT), Key (K), and Circular Left Shift (CLSn)
Output : Ciphertext (CT)

Step 1: Let PT be the input plaintext and CT be the array to store the ciphertext.
Step 2: if(length(PT)%8 != 0) then
2.1 Input the padding character.
2.2 Append the padding character at the end of plaintext (PT).
Step 3: Convert the PT into corresponding ASCII value and then binary format.
Step 4: Divide the binary string into blocks of size 64 bits.
Step 5: Repeat steps 6 and 7 until all blocks are processed.
Step 6: Repeat for i :: 0 to n-1
6.1 key Åkey[K+i] % tnk, where tnk represents the total number of keys (64 or 80).
6.2 CLSn (key)
Step 7: CT Å Concatenate (CT, BitXoR(Bi, key))

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Step 8: Return the Ciphertext (CT)

The decryption process is just the inverse of the encryption function.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

In the proposed method, different keys are used to encrypt different data blocks of the plaintext message so the
system is less vulnerable to cryptanalysis attacks. The repeated characters of plaintext space are mapped to different
characters in the ciphertext space even though they appear in the same block or different blocks. Table 2 gives the
results of encrypting the messages “meet me afer the toga party” and “attack postponed to two am” using the
random key streams generated from both the constants used in MD5 and SHA-512 hash functions. The result shows
that the repeated characters are mapped to different cipher characters. Hence, the ciphertext is not easily amenable to
cryptanalysis and less vulnerable to letter frequency attack.

Table – 2 Security Against Cryptanalysis

Key (K, CLSn) 45, 34

Plaintext Meet me after the toga party
Ciphertext (SHA constants) 8óÁ77y÷)¡ò߸]¢z-63ÞøÀ
Ciphertext (MD5 constants) -þöñì+àìbÒ`Å
Decrypted Text Meetmeafterthetogaparty
Plaintext Attack postponed to two am
Ciphertext (SHA constants) âÐ"9hþ.°ðľ]²a¥1ÇÀ
Ciphertext (MD5 constants) ïøøý)ûìeÜsÜY
Decrypted Text Attackpostponedtotwoam

A. Testing of Avalanche Effect

The change of a single character in the plaintext message affects the subsequent characters to produce different
ciphertext and this is given in Table 3 and Table 4. Hence, the proposed algorithm has achieved a good avalanche
effect which is one of the desired qualities of a good encryption algorithm.

Table – 3 Testing of Avalanche Effect using SHA Constants

Plaintext meet me after the toga party

Key (K, CLSn) 25, 16
Ciphertext rMÌ^êlDâ²eûfò-ô†˜
Plaintext met me after the toga party
Key (K, CLSn) 25,16
Ciphertext rMÝVø}Bþ¿tó`ã>ùÿ˜

Table – 4 Testing of Avalanche Effect using MD5 Constants

Plaintext meet me after the toga party

Key (K, CLSn) 25, 16
Ciphertext ¤ômeâ¶A&´he÷²Êkártú¢
Plain Text met me after the toga party
Key (K, CLSn) 25,16
Cipher Text ¤íeaå¤P1¨etìºÌzòty¢

B. Testing of Key Sensitivity

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 International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET)

A small change in the encryption key (k) and circular shift (CLSn) should produce a completely different ciphertext.
Table 5 and Table 6 give the ciphertext produced for the plaintext message “meet me afer the toga party” for
different key pair with minor variation.
The hamming distance between the ciphertext produced by the key pairs (24, 15) and (25, 16) is 87, and similarly,
between the ciphertext produced by the key pairs (25, 16) and (26, 17) is 78 for the random key stream generated by
using the SHA-512 constants.

The hamming distance between the ciphertext produced by the key pairs (24, 15) and (25, 16) is 65, and similarly,
between the ciphertext produced by the key pairs (25, 16) and (26, 17) is 87 for the random key stream derived by
using the constants used in MD5 algorithm. Thus, the proposed method has good key sensitivity and also satisfies
the avalanche property significantly.

Table – 5 Testing of Key Sensitivity using SHA Constants

Plaintext meet me after the toga party

Key (K, CLSn) 24, 15
Ciphertext (CT1) ¡5åÅ-Ý{ñ&ÏñÕ©kë*tÊ
Key (K, CLSn) 25,16
Ciphertext (CT2) rMÌ^êlDâ²eûfò-ô†˜
Key (K, CLSn) 26,17
Ciphertext (CT3) \£YÙdNwBºìd_>-·ßu?
Hamming distance
87 bits
between CT1 and CT2
Hamming distance
78 bits
between CT2 and CT3

Table – 6 Testing of Key Sensitivity using MD5 Constants

Plaintext meet me after the toga party

Key (K, CLSn) 24,15
Ciphertext (CT1) tme¦´he5ýÀÀrt8î
Key (K, CLSn) 25,16
Ciphertext (CT2) ¤ômeâ¶A&´he÷²Êkártú¢
Key (K, CLSn) 26,17
Ciphertext (CT3) ã¦ômdfÜ.qthds*òáru~”
Hamming distance
65 bits
between CT1 and CT2
Hamming distance
87 bits
between CT2 and CT3

C. Testing of Active Attacks

Repeated words present in the same plaintext block or different blocks are mapped into different ciphertexts. Hence,
active attacks such as chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext attacks are quite difficult to succeed. Thus, the
proposed method is less vulnerable to active attacks and the same is given in Table 7. Since the time required to
encipher or decipher a data block is same for all data blocks, the proposed method is less prone to timing attacks.

Table – 7 Security Against Active Attacks

Plaintext Alice has the key for encryption.Key is of 24 bits
Key (K, CLSn) 67, 36
Ciphertext ñc{7»jÎe%a-Ú¥/aÇzÛFÍiÞ{h0´
Decrypted Text Alicehasthekeyforencryption.Keyisof24bits

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D. Key Space Analysis

The size of a single key is 64 bits and the total numbers of keys generated from the MD5 and SHA-512 constants are
64 and 80, respectively. Hence, the total key space is 60×264+80×264 which is approximately 271 and this is enough
to resist the exhaustive key search attack.

IV.CONCLUSION

A symmetric key cryptosystem to encrypt text data by using the random constants used in SHA-512 and MD5 hash
functions is proposed in this paper. The method is very simple and efficient because of the XOR operation and
extended key space. The observation illustrates the generated ciphertext is junk characters or special characters
which does not provide any information directly to the intruders. The proposed method is safe against cryptanalysis
attack and has good avalanche effect. It is found that the suggested method is very much sentitive with respect to the
encryption key. The algorithm satisfies both confusion and diffusion properties significantly.

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