Network Security

Symmetric Encryption

• or conventional / private-key / single-key

• sender and recipient share a common key
• all classical encryption algorithms are private-key

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 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

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Symmetric Cipher Model

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 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

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 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

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 Cryptanalysis

• objective to recover key not just message

• general approaches:
– cryptanalytic attack (key with some knowledge of plain + cipher)
– brute-force attack

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 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

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 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 Alternative Keys Time required at 1 decryption/µs Time required at 106 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

26 characters 26! = 4  1026 2  1026 µs = 6.4  1012 years 6.4  106 years
(permutation)

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 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

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 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

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 Caesar Cipher

• can define transformation as:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC

• mathematically give each letter a number

abcdefghij 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)

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 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

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 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

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 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

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YE CUE AUSGBK AM REXGWFEU C AEQA IEAD DEE YE XCB TE DHXXEERER.

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English Letter Frequencies

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 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

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 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

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 Vigenère Cipher

• simplest polyalphabetic substitution cipher

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

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 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: eceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHC
QYGLMGJ

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 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

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 Autokey Cipher
• ideally want a key as long as the message
• Vigenère proposed the autokey cipher
• with keyword is prefixed to message as key
• knowing keyword can recover the first few letters
• use these in turn on the rest of the message
• but still have frequency characteristics to attack
• eg. given key deceptive
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGKZEIIGASXSTSLVVWLA

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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: 3421567
Plaintext: a t t a c k p
os tpone
dunt i l t
woamxyz
Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ

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 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

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 Rotor Machines

• before modern ciphers, rotor machines were most common complex

ciphers in use
• widely used in WW2
– 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

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Hagelin Rotor Machine

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 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

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 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

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