Symmetric Encryption

Algorithms
CS-480b
Dick Steflik

Text – Network Security Essentials – Wm. Stallings

Lecture slides by Lawrie Brown Edited by Dick Steflik
 Symmetric Cipher Model
• Plaintext
• Encryption Algorithm
• Secret Key (known to sender and receiver)
• Ciphertext
• Decryption Algorithm

Secret Secret
Key Key

Plaintext Encryption Decryption Plaintext

Message Algorithm Algorithm Message
Transmitted
Ciphertext
 Modern Block Ciphers
• Block ciphers are among the most widely
used types of cryptographic algorithms
• provide secrecy and/or authentication
services
• in particular will introduce DES (Data
Encryption Standard)
 Block Cipher Principles
• most symmetric block ciphers are based on a
Feistel Cipher Structure
• needed since must be able to decrypt ciphertext to
recover messages efficiently
• block ciphers look like an extremely large
substitution
• would need table of 264 entries for a 64-bit block
• instead create from smaller building blocks
• using idea of a product cipher
 Claude Shannon and Substitution-
Permutation Ciphers
• in 1949 Claude Shannon introduced idea of
substitution-permutation (S-P) networks
• modern substitution-transposition product cipher
• these form the basis of modern block ciphers
• S-P networks are based on the two primitive
cryptographic operations we have seen before:
• substitution (S-box)
• permutation (P-box)
• provide confusion and diffusion of message
 Confusion and Diffusion
• cipher needs to completely obscure statistical
properties of original message
• a one-time pad does this
• more practically Shannon suggested combining
elements to obtain:
• diffusion – dissipates statistical structure of
plaintext over bulk of ciphertext
• confusion – makes relationship between
ciphertext and key as complex as possible
 Feistel Cipher Structure
• Horst Feistel devised the feistel cipher
• based on concept of invertible product cipher
• partitions input block into two halves
• process through multiple rounds which
• perform a substitution on left data half
• based on round function of right half & subkey
• then have permutation swapping halves
• implements Shannon’s substitution-permutation
network concept
Feistel Cipher Structure
 Feistel Cipher Design Principles
• block size
• increasing size improves security, but slows cipher
• key size
• increasing size improves security, makes exhaustive key searching harder,
but may slow cipher
• number of rounds
• increasing number improves security, but slows cipher
• subkey generation
• greater complexity can make analysis harder, but slows cipher
• round function
• greater complexity can make analysis harder, but slows cipher
• fast software en/decryption & ease of analysis
• are more recent concerns for practical use and testing
Feistel Cipher Decryption
 Data Encryption Standard (DES)

• most widely used block cipher in world

• adopted in 1977 by NBS (now NIST)
• as FIPS PUB 46
• encrypts 64-bit data using 56-bit key
• has widespread use
• has been considerable controversy over its
security
 DES History
• IBM developed Lucifer cipher
• by team led by Feistel
• used 64-bit data blocks with 128-bit key
• then redeveloped as a commercial cipher with
input from NSA and others
• in 1973 NBS issued request for proposals for a
national cipher standard
• IBM submitted their revised Lucifer which was
eventually accepted as the DES
 DES Design Controversy
• although DES standard is public there was
considerable controversy over design
• in choice of 56-bit key (vs Lucifer 128-bit)
• and because design criteria were classified
• subsequent events and public analysis show
in fact design was appropriate
• DES has become widely used, especially in
financial applications
DES Encryption
 Initial Permutation IP
• first step of the data computation
• IP reorders the input data bits
• even bits to LH half, odd bits to RH half
• quite regular in structure (easy in h/w)
• example:
IP(675a6967 5e5a6b5a) = (ffb2194d 004df6fb)
 DES Round Structure
• uses two 32-bit L & R halves
• as for any Feistel cipher can describe as:
Li = Ri–1
Ri = Li–1 xor F(Ri–1, Ki)
• takes 32-bit R half and 48-bit subkey and:
• expands R to 48-bits using perm E
• adds to subkey
• passes through 8 S-boxes to get 32-bit result
• finally permutes this using 32-bit perm P
DES Round Structure
 Substitution Boxes S
• have eight S-boxes which map 6 to 4 bits
• each S-box is actually 4 little 4 bit boxes
• outer bits 1 & 6 (row bits) select one rows
• inner bits 2-5 (col bits) are substituted
• result is 8 lots of 4 bits, or 32 bits
• row selection depends on both data & key
• feature known as autoclaving (autokeying)
• example:
S(18 09 12 3d 11 17 38 39) = 5fd25e03
 DES Key Schedule
• forms subkeys used in each round
• consists of:
• initial permutation of the key (PC1) which
selects 56-bits in two 28-bit halves
• 16 stages consisting of:
• selecting 24-bits from each half
• permuting them by PC2 for use in function f,
• rotating each half separately either 1 or 2 places
depending on the key rotation schedule K
 DES Decryption
• decrypt must unwind steps of data computation
• with Feistel design, do encryption steps again
• using subkeys in reverse order (SK16 … SK1)
• note that IP undoes final FP step of encryption
• 1st round with SK16 undoes 16th encrypt round
• ….
• 16th round with SK1 undoes 1st encrypt round
• then final FP undoes initial encryption IP
• thus recovering original data value
 Avalanche Effect
• key desirable property of an encryption algorithm
• where a change of one input or key bit results in
changing approx half output bits
• making attempts to “home-in” by guessing keys
impossible
• DES exhibits strong avalanche
 Strength of DES – Key Size
• 56-bit keys have 256 = 7.2 x 1016 values
• brute force search looks hard
• recent advances have shown is possible
• in 1997 on Internet in a few months
• in 1998 on dedicated h/w (EFF) in a few days
• in 1999 above combined in 22hrs!
• still must be able to recognize plaintext
• now considering alternatives to DES
 Strength of DES – Timing Attacks
• attacks actual implementation of cipher
• use knowledge of consequences of
implementation to derive knowledge of
some/all subkey bits
• specifically use fact that calculations can
take varying times depending on the value
of the inputs to it
• particularly problematic on smartcards
 Strength of DES – Analytic Attacks
• now have several analytic attacks on DES
• these utilize some deep structure of the cipher
• by gathering information about encryptions
• can eventually recover some/all of the sub-key bits
• if necessary then exhaustively search for the rest
• generally these are statistical attacks
• include
• differential cryptanalysis
• linear cryptanalysis
• related key attacks
 3DES
• Made part of DES in 1999
• Uses 3 keys and 3 DES executions
• using 3 keys 3DES has an effective key length of 168 bits (3*56)
• follows encrypt-decrypt-encrypt (EDE)
• the decryption phase is for backwards compatibility with single DES
• FIPS algorithm of choice
• Govt. organizations using DES are encouraged to convert
to 3DES
• 3DES and AES will exist simultaneously allowing a
gradual migration to AES
 Advanced Encryption Standard
• Proposed successor to DES
• DES drawbacks
• algorithm designed for 1970s hardware implementation
• performs sluggishly in software implementations
• 3DES is 3 times slower due to 3 rounds
• 64 bit blocksize needs to be increased to spped things up
• AES Overview
• 128, 192, 256 bit blocksize (128 bit likely to be most common)
• Not a Feistal structure, process entire block in parallel
• 128 bit key, expanded into 44, 32bit words with 4 words used for
each round
 International Data Encryption
Standard (IDEA)
• Developed in Switzerland 1991
• 128 bit key, 64 bit blocksize, 8 rounds
• algorithm is quite different than DES,
• doesn’t use S-boxes
• uses binary addition rather than exclusive-or
• used in Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
 Blowfish
• 1993 – Bruce Schneier
• Popular alternative to DES
• Variable length keys - 128 bits but up to 448 bits
• up to 16 rounds
• 64 bit blocksize
• used in many commercial software packages
 RC5
• 1994 – Ron Rivest
• one of inventors of RSA public key algorithm
• RFC 2040
• good for either hard/software implementations
• fast
• adaptable to processors of different word sizes
• variable length keys, variable number of rounds
• low memory requirements
• intended for high security applications
• included in a number of RSA Data Securities products
 Modes of Operation
• block ciphers encrypt fixed size blocks
• eg. DES encrypts 64-bit blocks, with 56-bit key
• need way to use in practise, given you usually
have arbitrary amount of information to encrypt
• four were defined for DES in ANSI standard
ANSI X3.106-1983 Modes of Use
• subsequently now have 5 for DES and AES
• have block and stream modes
 Electronic Codebook Book (ECB)
• message is broken into independent blocks
which are encrypted
• each block is a value which is substituted, like
a codebook, hence name
• each block is encoded independently of the
other blocks
Ci = DESK1 (Pi)
• uses: secure transmission of single values
Electronic Codebook Book (ECB)
Advantages and Limitations of ECB
• repetitions in message may show in ciphertext
• if aligned with message block
• particularly with data such graphics
• or with messages that change very little, which become
a code-book analysis problem
• weakness due to encrypted message blocks being
independent
• main use is sending a few blocks of data
 Cipher Block Chaining (CBC)
• message is broken into blocks
• but these are linked together in the encryption
operation
• each previous cipher blocks is chained with
current plaintext block, hence name
• use Initial Vector (IV) to start process
Ci = DESK1(Pi XOR Ci-1)
C-1 = IV
• uses: bulk data encryption, authentication
Cipher Block Chaining (CBC)
Advantages and Limitations of CBC
• each ciphertext block depends on all message blocks
• thus a change in the message affects all ciphertext blocks
after the change as well as the original block
• need Initial Value (IV) known to sender & receiver
• however if IV is sent in the clear, an attacker can change bits of the
first block, and change IV to compensate
• hence either IV must be a fixed value (as in EFTPOS) or it must be
sent encrypted in ECB mode before rest of message
• at end of message, handle possible last short block
• by padding either with known non-data value (eg nulls)
• or pad last block with count of pad size
• eg. [ b1 b2 b3 0 0 0 0 5] <- 3 data bytes, then 5 bytes pad+count
 Cipher FeedBack (CFB)
• message is treated as a stream of bits
• added to the output of the block cipher
• result is feed back for next stage (hence name)
• standard allows any number of bit (1,8 or 64 or
whatever) to be feed back
• denoted CFB-1, CFB-8, CFB-64 etc
• is most efficient to use all 64 bits (CFB-64)
Ci = Pi XOR DESK1(Ci-1)
C-1 = IV
• uses: stream data encryption, authentication
Cipher FeedBack (CFB)
Advantages and Limitations of CFB
• appropriate when data arrives in bits/bytes
• most common stream mode
• limitation is need to stall while do block
encryption after every n-bits
• note that the block cipher is used in
encryption mode at both ends
• errors propagate for several blocks after the
error
 Summary
• have considered:
• block cipher design principles
• DES
• details
• strength
• Modes of Operation
• ECB, CBC, CFB