Cryptography

18EC752

Unit 1- Introduction, Symmetric Ciphers

Dr. M. V. Mandi
Professor & Head, Dept. of ECE, Dr. AIT,
Bangalore

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Topics

Unit 1 – Classical Encryption

Unit 2 – Finite Fields
Unit 3 – Private Key Encryption
Unit 4 - Public Key Encryption

Unit 5 - Authentication Function and Hash Functions

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Textbook
– Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and
Practice: By William Stallings Pearson Education,
2003
Reference Books
– Cryptography & Network Security: By Behrouz
Forouzan, TMH, 2007
- Cryptography & Network Security: By Atul Kahate,
TMH, 2003
– Handbook of Applied Cryptography: By Alfred J.
Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott A. Vanstone,
CRC Press
– Cryptography & Network Security with Source Code
in C: By Bruce Scheiner
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Unit 1 – Introduction

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 Cryptography

Cryptography (from Greek kryptós, "hidden", and

gráphein, "to write") is, traditionally, the study of
means of converting information from its normal,
comprehensible form into an incomprehensible
format, rendering it unreadable without secret
knowledge — the art of encryption

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 Cryptography
• Past: Cryptography helped ensure secrecy in
important communications, such as those of spies,
military leaders, and diplomats.

• In recent decades, cryptography has expanded its

remit in two ways
– mechanisms for more than just keeping secrets: schemes like digital
signatures and digital cash, for example.

– in widespread use by many civilians, and users are not aware of it.

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Crypto-graphy, -analysis, -logy
• The study of how to circumvent the use of
cryptography is called cryptanalysis, or codebreaking.
• Cryptography and cryptanalysis are sometimes
grouped together under the umbrella term
cryptology, encompassing the entire subject.
• In practice, "cryptography" is also often used to refer
to the field as a whole; crypto is an informal
abbreviation.
• Cryptography is an interdisciplinary subject,
– Mathematics: number theory, information theory, computational complexity,
statistics and combinatorics
– Engineering

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 Close, but different fields
• Steganography
– the study of hiding the very existence of a message,
and not necessarily the contents of the message itself
(for example, microdots, or invisible ink)
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
• Traffic analysis
– which is the analysis of patterns of communication in
order to learn secret information

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis
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Stenography Example

Last 2 bits

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 Background
• Information Security requirements have changed in
recent times

• Traditionally provided by physical and administrative

mechanisms
• Computer use requires automated tools to protect files
and other stored information

• Use of networks and communications links requires

measures to protect data during transmission
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 Definitions
• Computer Security - generic name for the collection of
tools designed to protect data

• Network Security - measures to protect data during

their transmission

• Internet Security - measures to protect data during their

transmission over a collection of interconnected
networks

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 Aim of Course
• Our focus is on Cryptography
• Consists of measures to deter, prevent, detect and
correct security violations that involve the transmission of
information

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 Services, Mechanisms, Attacks
• Need systematic way to define requirements

• Consider three aspects of information security:

– Security service

– Security mechanism

– Security attack

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 Security Service
– is something that enhances the security of the
data processing systems and the information
transfers of an organization
– intended to counter security attacks
– make use of one or more security
mechanisms to provide the service
– replicate functions normally associated with
physical documents
• Eg: have signatures, dates; need protection from disclosure,
tampering, or destruction; be recorded or licensed

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 Security Mechanism
• a mechanism that is designed to detect, prevent,
or recover from a security attack
• no single mechanism that will support all
functions required
• however one particular element underlies many
of the security mechanisms in use:
cryptographic techniques
• hence our focus on this area

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 Security Attack
• any action that compromises the security of
information owned by an organization
• information security is about how to prevent
attacks, or failing that, to detect attacks on
information-based systems
• have a wide range of attacks
• can focus of generic types of attacks namely
passive attacks or active attacks

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 Security Attack
• Passive attacks
– Interception
• Release of message contents
• Traffic analysis
• Active attacks
– Interruption, modification, fabrication
• Replay
• Modification
• Denial of service

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Information Transferring

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Attack: Interruption

Cut wire lines,

Jam wireless
signals,
Drop packets,

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Attack: Interception

Wiring,
eavesdrop

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 Attack: Modification

Replaced
intercept
info

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Attack: Fabrication

Also called impersonation

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In brief: Attacks, Services and Mechanisms
• Security Attacks
– Action compromises the information security
– Could be passive or active attacks

• Security Services
– Actions that can prevent, detect such attacks.
– Such as authentication, identification, encryption,
signature, secret sharing and so on.

• Security mechanism
– The ways to provide such services
– Detect, prevent and recover from a security attack
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Some Basic Concepts

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• Cryptography is the study of

– Secret (crypto-) writing (-graphy)

• Concerned with developing algorithms:

– Conceal the context of some message from all

except the sender and recipient (privacy or
secrecy), and/or

– Verify the correctness of a message to the

recipient (authentication)

– Form the basis of many technological solutions to

computer and communications security problems 25
 Encryption and Decryption

Decipher P = D(K1)(C)
Plaintext ciphertext

Encipher C = E(K1)(P)
K1: from keyspace

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 OSI Security Architecture
• ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union
Telecommunication) standardization sector
recommendation X.800 Security Architecture for
OSI
• defines a systematic way of defining and
providing security requirement

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 Security Services
• X.800 defines it as: a service provided by a
protocol layer of communicating open systems,
which ensures adequate security of the systems
or of data transfers
• RFC 2828 defines it as: a processing or
communication service provided by a system to
give a specific kind of protection to system
resources
• X.800 defines it in 5 major categories

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 Security Services (X.800)
• Authentication - assurance that the
communicating entity is the one claimed
• Access Control - prevention of the
unauthorized use of a resource
• Data Confidentiality –protection of data from
unauthorized disclosure
• Data Integrity - assurance that data received is
as sent by an authorized entity
• Non-Repudiation - protection against denial by
one of the parties in a communication
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 Security Mechanisms (X.800)
• specific security mechanisms:
– encipherment, digital signatures, access
controls, data integrity, authentication etc.

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 Classify Security Attacks as
• passive attacks - eavesdropping on, or
monitoring of, transmissions to:
– obtain message contents, or
– monitor traffic flows
• active attacks – modification of data stream to:
– replay previous messages
– modify messages in transit
– denial of service

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Model for Network Security

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 Model for Network Security
Trusted Third Party

principal principal

Security Security
transformation transformation

attacker
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 Model for Network Security
• using this model requires us to:
– design a suitable algorithm for the security
transformation
– generate the secret information (keys) used
by the algorithm
– develop methods to distribute and share the
secret information
– specify a protocol enabling the principals to
use the transformation and secret information
for a security service

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Model for Network Access Security

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Model for Network Access Security
• using this model requires us to:
– select appropriate gatekeeper functions (Firewall)
to identify users
– implement security controls to ensure only authorised
users access designated information or resources

• trusted computer systems can be used to

implement this model

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 Summary
• We have considered:
– computer, network, internet security
definitions
– security services, mechanisms and attacks
– X.800 standard
– models for network (access) security

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Classical Encryption
Techniques
 Symmetric Encryption

• or conventional / private-key / single-key

• sender and recipient share a common key
• all classical encryption algorithms are private-
key
• was only type prior to invention of public-key in
1970’s
• and by far most widely used
 Some Basic Terminology
• plaintext - original message
• ciphertext - coded message
• cipher - algorithm for transforming plaintext to ciphertext
• key - info used in cipher known only to sender/receiver
• encipher (encrypt) - converting plaintext to ciphertext
• decipher (decrypt) - recovering ciphertext from plaintext
• cryptography - study of encryption principles/methods

• cryptanalysis (codebreaking) - study of principles/

methods of deciphering ciphertext without knowing key
• cryptology - field of both cryptography and cryptanalysis
Symmetric Cipher Model
 Requirements
• two requirements for secure use of symmetric
encryption:
– a strong encryption algorithm
– a secret key known only to sender / receiver

• mathematically have:
Y = EK(X)
X = DK(Y)

• assume encryption algorithm is known

• implies a secure channel to distribute key
 Cryptography

• 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
 Cryptanalysis

• objective to recover key not just message

• general approaches:
– cryptanalytic attack

– brute-force attack
 Cryptanalytic Attacks
• ciphertext only
– only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical, know or can
identify plaintext

• known plaintext
– know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext

• chosen plaintext
– select plaintext and obtain ciphertext

• chosen ciphertext
– select ciphertext and obtain plaintext

• chosen text
– select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt
 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
 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 Time required at Time required at
Alternative 1 decryption/µs 106
Keys 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
 Classical Substitution Ciphers

• where letters of plaintext are replaced by other letters or by

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

• earliest known substitution cipher

• by Julius Caesar
• first attested use in military affairs
• replaces each letter by 3rd letter on
• example:

meet me after the toga party

PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
 Caesar Cipher
• 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

• then have Caesar cipher as:

c = E(p) = (p + k) mod (26)
p = D(c) = (c – k) mod (26)
 Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher

• only have 26 possible ciphers

– A maps toA,B,..Z

• could simply try each in turn

• a brute force search

• given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters

• do need to recognize when have plaintext

• eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"

 Monoalphabetic Cipher
• rather than just shifting the alphabet
• could shuffle (jumble) the letters arbitrarily
• each plaintext letter maps to a different random
ciphertext letter
• hence key is 26 letters long

Plain: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Cipher: DKVQFIBJWPESCXHTMYAUOLRGZN

Plaintext: ifwewishtoreplaceletters
Ciphertext: WIRFRWAJUHYFTSDVFSFUUFYA
 Monoalphabetic Cipher Security

• now have a total of 26! = 4 x 1026 keys

• with so many keys, might think is secure
• but would be !!!WRONG!!!
• problem is language characteristics
 Language Redundancy and Cryptanalysis

• human languages are redundant

• eg "th lrd s m shphrd shll nt wnt"
• 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
 Playfair Cipher

• not even the large number of keys in a monoalphabetic

cipher provides security
• one approach to improving security was to encrypt
multiple letters
• the Playfair Cipher is an example
• invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1854, but named
after his friend Baron Playfair
 Playfair Key Matrix
• a 5X5 matrix of letters based on a keyword
• fill in letters of keyword (sans duplicates)
• fill rest of matrix with other letters
• eg. 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
1. if a pair is a repeated letter, insert filler like 'X’
2. if both letters fall in the same row, replace each with
letter to right (wrapping back to start from end)
3. if both letters fall in the same column, replace each
with the letter below it (again wrapping to top from
bottom)
4. 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
 Polyalphabetic Ciphers
• polyalphabetic substitution ciphers
• improve security using multiple cipher alphabets
• make cryptanalysis harder with more alphabets to guess
and flatter frequency distribution
• use a key to select which alphabet is used for each letter
of the message
• use each alphabet in turn
• repeat from start after end of key is reached
 Vigenère Cipher

• simplest polyalphabetic substitution cipher

• effectively multiple caesar ciphers
• key is multiple letters long K = k1 k2 ... kd
• ith letter specifies ith alphabet touse
• use each alphabet in turn
• repeat from start after d letters in message
• decryption simply works in reverse
 Example of Vigenère Cipher

• write the plaintext out

• write the keyword repeated above it
• use each key letter as a caesar cipher key
• encrypt the corresponding plaintext letter
• eg using keyword deceptive
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ
 Aids
• simple aids can assist with en/decryption
• a Saint-Cyr Slide is a simple manual aid
– a slide with repeated alphabet
– line up plaintext 'A' with key letter, eg 'C'
– then read off any mapping for key letter
• can bend round into a cipher disk
• or expand into a Vigenère Tableau
 Security of Vigenère Ciphers
• have multiple ciphertext letters for each plaintext
letter
• hence letter frequencies are obscured
• but not totally lost
• start with letter frequencies
– see if look monoalphabetic or not
• if not, then need to determine number of
alphabets, since then can attach each
 One-Time Pad
• if a truly random key as long as the message is used, the
cipher will be secure
• called a One-Time pad
• is unbreakable since ciphertext bears no statistical
relationship to the plaintext
• since for any plaintext & any ciphertext there exists a
key mapping one to other
• can only use the key once though
• problems in generation & safe distribution of key
 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
• write message letters out diagonally over a number of
rows

• then read off cipher row by row

• eg. write message out as:

m e m a t r h t g p r y
e t e f e t e o a a t

• giving ciphertext
MEMATRHTGPRYETEFETEOAAT
 Row Transposition Ciphers
• a more complex transposition
• write letters of message out in rows over a
specified number of columns
• then reorder the columns according to some key
before reading off the rows

Key: 3 4 2 1 5 6 7
Plaintext: a t t a c k p
o s t p o n e
d u n t i l t
w o a m x y z

Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ
 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 World War - 2

– 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
 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
Summary
• have considered:
– classical cipher techniques and terminology
– monoalphabetic substitution ciphers
– cryptanalysis using letter frequencies
– Playfair cipher
– polyalphabetic ciphers
– transposition ciphers
– product ciphers and rotor machines
– stenography