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Foundations of Cryptography (CYS 602) : Lecture #1 Introduction To Cryptography and Data Security

1. Cryptography involves encryption to hide message meaning and cryptanalysis to break encryption. 2. Symmetric encryption uses a shared secret key between parties, while asymmetric uses public/private key pairs for applications like signatures and key establishment. 3. The document discusses the substitution cipher as a simple encryption method, how it can be broken through brute force or letter frequency analysis, and how more advanced techniques are needed for secure encryption.

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Wafaa Alshaikhi
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70 views13 pages

Foundations of Cryptography (CYS 602) : Lecture #1 Introduction To Cryptography and Data Security

1. Cryptography involves encryption to hide message meaning and cryptanalysis to break encryption. 2. Symmetric encryption uses a shared secret key between parties, while asymmetric uses public/private key pairs for applications like signatures and key establishment. 3. The document discusses the substitution cipher as a simple encryption method, how it can be broken through brute force or letter frequency analysis, and how more advanced techniques are needed for secure encryption.

Uploaded by

Wafaa Alshaikhi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FOUNDATIONS OF

CRYPTOGRAPHY
(CYS 602)
LECTURE #1 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DATA SECURITY
DEFINITIONS

• Cryptology splits into two main branches:

1. Cryptography: is the science of secret writing with the goal of hiding the meaning of a
message.
2. Cryptanalysis: is the science and sometimes art of breaking cryptosystems.
DEFINITIONS (CONT’D)

• Symmetric Algorithms is two parties have an encryption and decryption method for
which they share a secret key.
 They are used for data encryption and integrity check of messages

• Asymmetric Algorithms: a user possesses a secret key as in symmetric cryptography but


also a public key.
 Asymmetric algorithms can be used for applications such as digital signatures and key
establishment, and also for classical data encryption

• Protocols: deal with the application of cryptographic algorithms.


CRYPTOLOGY

Fig.1. Cryptology
SYMMETRIC CRYPTOGRAPHY

• If there are two users, Alice and Bob, who want to communicate over an insecure
channel, the actual problem is, Oscar, who has access to the channel,, by hacking into an
Internet router or by listening to the radio signals of a Wi-Fi communication.
• This type of unauthorized listening is called eavesdropping.
• Symmetric cryptography offers a powerful solution
COMMUNICATION OVER AN INSECURE
CHANNEL
COMMUNICATION OVER A SECURE CHANNEL

• x is called plaintext or cleartext.


• y is called ciphertext.
• k is called the key.
• The set of all possible keys is called the
key space.
• Alice encrypts her message x using a symmetric algorithm, creating the ciphertext y.
• Bob receives the ciphertext and decrypts the message.
• Decryption is, the inverse process of encryption.
• Using a strong encryption algorithm, the ciphertext will look like random bits to Oscar
and will contain no information that is useful to him.
•
THE SUBSTITUTION CIPHER

• A k • ABBA would be encrypted as kddk

• Bd • The substitution table completely


randomly, so that an attacker is not able to
• Cw
guess it.
• the substitution table is the key of this
• cryptosystem.
• the key has to be distributed between
Alice and Bob in a secure method.
THE SUBSTITUTION CIPHER (CONT’D)

• The major weakness of the substitution cipher is that each plaintext symbol always maps
to the same ciphertext symbol.
• That means that the statistical properties of the plaintext are preserved in the ciphertext.
• The substitution cipher is not secure at all! Let’s look at ways of breaking the cipher.
BRUTE-FORCE ATTACKS

• Brute-force attacks are based on a simple concept: the attacker, has the ciphertext from
eavesdropping on the channel and happens to have a short piece of plaintext, e.g., the
header of a file that was encrypted. The attacker now simply decrypts the first piece of
ciphertext with all possible keys. Again, the key for this cipher is the substitution table. If
the resulting plaintext matches the short piece of plaintext, he knows that he has found the
correct key
LETTER FREQUENCY ANALYSIS

• 1. Determine the frequency of every ciphertext letter. The frequency distribution, often
even of relatively short pieces of encrypted text, will be close to that of the given
language in general.
• The most frequent letters can often easily be spotted in ciphertexts. For instance, in
English E is the most frequent letter (about 13%), T is the second most frequent letter
(about 9%), A is the third most frequent letter (about 8%), and so on.
• 2. For instance, in English (and some other European languages), the letter Q is almost
always followed by a U. This behavior can be exploited to detect the substitution of the
letter Q and the letter U.
• 3. If we assume that word separators (blanks) have been found (which is only sometimes
the case), one can often detect frequent short words such as THE, AND, etc. Once we
have identified one of these words, we immediately know three letters (or whatever the
length of the word is) for the entire text.

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