Chapter 2

Introduction to Cryptography

Dr. Safi Ibrahim

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Cryptanalysis
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Cryptanalysis
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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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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  Classification of the Field of Cryptology

Cryptology

Cryptography Cryptanalysis

Symmetric Ciphers Asymmetric Ciphers Protocols

Block Ciphers Stream Ciphers

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  Some Basic Facts

• Ancient Crypto: Early signs of encryption in Eqypt in ca. 2000 B.C.

Letter-based encryption schemes (e.g., Caesar cipher) popular ever since.

• Symmetric ciphers: All encryption schemes from ancient times until 1976 were
symmetric ones.

• Asymmetric ciphers: In 1976 public-key (or asymmetric) cryptography was openly

proposed by Diffie, Hellman and Merkle.

• Hybrid Schemes: The majority of today‘s protocols are hybrid schemes, i.e., the
use both
• symmteric ciphers (e.g., for encryption and message authentication) and
• asymmetric ciphers (e.g., for key exchange and digital signature).

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Cryptanalysis
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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 Symmetric Cryptography
• Alternative names: private-key, single-key or secret-key cryptography.

Oscar
(bad guy)
U
n
s
e
c
u
r
Alice e Bob
(good) x channel x (good)
(e.g. Internet)

• Problem Statement:
1) Alice and Bob would like to communicate via an unsecure channel (e.g.,
WLAN or Internet).
2) A malicious third party Oscar (the bad guy) has channel access but should
not be able to understand the communication.

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 Symmetric Cryptography

Oscar
Solution: Encryption with symmetric cipher.
(bad guy)
 Oscar obtains only ciphertext y, that looks Unsecure
like random bits channel
y (e.g.
Internet)

Alice Encryption Decryption Bob

(good) x e( ) y d( ) x (good)

K K

Key Generator

Secure Channel

• x is the. plaintext
• y is the ciphertext
• K is the key
• Set of all keys {K1, K2, ...,Kn} is the key space
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  Symmetric Cryptography

• Encryption equation y = eK(x)

• Decryption equation x=

• dK(y)
Encryption and decryption are inverse operations if the same key K is used on both
sides:
dK(y) = dK(eK(x)) = x

• Important: The key must be transmitted via a secure channel between Alice and Bob.
• The secure channel can be realized, e.g., by manually installing the key for the Wi-Fi
Protected Access (WPA) protocol or a human courier.
• However, the system is only secure if an attacker does not learn the key K!
 The problem of secure communication is reduced to secure transmission and
storage of the key K.

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Cryptanalysis
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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  Why do we need Cryptanalysis?

• There is no mathematical proof of security for any practial cipher

• The only way to have assurance that a cipher is secure is to try to break it (and fail) !

Kerckhoff‘s Principle is paramount in modern cryptography:

A cryptosystem should be secure even if the attacker (Oscar)

knows all details about the system, with the exception of the secret
key.

• In order to achieve Kerckhoff‘s Principle in practice:

Only use widely known ciphers that have been cryptanalyzed for several years
by good cryptographers! (Understanding Cryptography only treats such ciphers)
• Remark: It is tempting to assume that a cipher is „more secure“ if its details are kept
secret. However, history has shown time and again that secret ciphers can almost
always been broken once they have been reversed engineered. (Example: Content
Scrambling System (CSS) for DVD content protection.)
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  Cryptanalysis: Attacking Cryptosystems

• Classical Attacks
• Mathematical Analysis
• Brute-Force Attack
• Implementation Attack: Try to extract key through reverese engineering or
power measurement, e.g., for a banking smart card.
• Social Engineering: E.g., trick a user into giving up her password

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  Brute-Force Attack (or Exhaustive Key Search) against Symmetric Ciphers

• Treats the cipher as a black box

• Requires (at least) 1 plaintext-ciphertext pair (x0, y0)
• Check all possible keys until condition is fulfilled:

d (y )x =?
K 0 0

• How many keys to we need ?

Key length Key space Security life time
in bit (assuming brute-force as best possible attack)

64 264 Short term (few days or less)

128 2128
Long-term (several decades in the absence of
quantum computers)

256 2256
Long-term (also resistant against quantum
computers – note that QC do not exist at the
moment and might never exist)

Important: An adversary only needs to succeed with one attack. Thus, a long key space
does not help if other attacks (e.g., social engineering) are possible..

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Cryptanalysis
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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  Substitution Cipher
• Historical cipher
• Great tool for understanding brute-force vs. analytical attacks
• Encrypts letters rather than bits (like all ciphers until after WW II)

Idea: replace each plaintext letter by a fixed other letter.

Plaintext Ciphertext
A  k
B  d
C  w
....
for instance, ABBA would be encrypted as kddk

• Example (ciphertext):
iq ifcc vqqr fb rdq vfllcq na rdq cfjwhwz hr bnnb hcc
hwwhbsqvqbre hwq vhlq
• How secure is the Substitution Cipher? Let‘s look at attacks…

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  Attacks against the Substitution Cipher

1. Attack: Exhaustive Key Search (Brute-Force Attack)

• Simply try every possible subsititution table until an intelligent plaintext appears
(note that each substitution table is a key)..
• How many substitution tables (= keys) are there?
26 x 25 x … x 3 x 2 x 1 = 26!  288
Search through 288 keys is completely infeasible with today‘s computers!
(cf. earlier table on key lengths)

• Q: Can we now conclude that the substitution cipher is secure since a brute-
forece attack is not feasible?
• A: No! We have to protect against all possible attacks…

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  2. Attack: Letter Frequency Analysis (Brute-Force Attack)
• Letters have very different frequencies in the English language
• Moreover: the frequency of plaintext letters is preserved in the ciphertext.
• For instanc, „e“ is the most common letter in English; almost 13% of all letters in a
typical English text are „e“.
• The next most common one is „t“ with about 9%.

Letter frequencies in English

14.0000

12.0000

10.0000
Frequency i n %

8. 00 00

6. 00 00

4. 00 00

2. 00 00

0. 00 00
E T A O I N S H R D L C U M W F G Y P B V K J X Q Z

Letters

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  Breaking the Substitution Cipher with Letter Frequency Attack

• Let‘s retun to our example and identify the most frequent letter:
iq ifcc vqqr fb rdq vfllcq na rdq cfjwhwz hr bnnb hcc
hwwhbsqvqbre hwq vhlq

• We replace the ciphertext letter q by E and obtain:

iE ifcc vEEr fb rdE vfllcE na rdE cfjwhwz hr bnnb
hcc hwwhbsEvEbre hwE vhlE

• By further guessing based on the frequency of the remaining letters we obtain the
plaintext:
WE WILL MEET IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIBRARY AT NOON ALL
ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE

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  Breaking the Substitution Cipher with Letter Frequency Attack

• In practice, not only frequencies of individual letters can be used for an attack,
but also the frequency of letter pairs (i.e., „th“ is very common in English), letter
triples, etc.
• cf. Problem 1.1 in Understanding Cryptography for a longer ciphertext you can
try to break!

Important lesson: Even though the substitution cipher has a sufficiently large key
space of appr. 288, it can easily be defeated with analytical methods. This is an
excellent example that an encryption scheme must withstand all types of
attacks.

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Attacking crypto schemes
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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  Short Introduction to Modular Arithmetic

Why do we need to study modular arithmetic?

• Extremely important for asymmetric cryptography (RSA,
elliptic curves etc.)
• Some historical ciphers can be elegantly described with
modular arithmetic (cf. Caesar and affine cipher later on).

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  Short Introduction to Modular Arithmetic
Generally speaking, most cryptosytems are based on sets of numbers that are
1. discrete (sets with integers are particularly useful)
2. finite (i.e., if we only compute with a finiely many numbers)

Seems too abstract? --- Let‘s look at a finite set with discrete numbers we are quite familiar
with: a clock.
12
11 1
10 2

9 3

8 4
7 5
6
Interestingly, even though the numbers are incremented every hour we never leave the set of
integers:
1, 2, 3, … 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, … 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, …:

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  Short Introduction to Modular Arithmetic
• We develop now an arithmetic system which allows us to compute in finite sets of
integers like the 12 integers we find on a clock (1,2,3, … ,12).
• It is crucial to have an operation which „keeps the numbers within limits“, i.e., after
addition and multiplication they should never leave the set (i.e., never larger than 12).

Definition: Modulus Operation

Let a, r, m be integers and m
> 0. We write
a ≡ r mod m
if (a-r) is divisable by m.
• “m” is called the
modulus
• “r” is called the
remainder

(you should check whether the condition „m divides (a-r)“holds in each of the 3 cases)

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Examples of modular Arithmetics

(you should check whether the condition „m divides (a-r)“holds in each of the 3 cases)

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  Properties of Modular Arithmetic

• The remainder is not unique

It is somewhat surprising that for every given modulus m and number a, there are (infinitely)
many valid remainders.
Example:
• 12 ≡ 3 mod 9 → 3 is a valid remainder since 9 / (3-12)
• 12 ≡ 21 mod 9 → 21 is a valid remainder since 9 / (21-12)
• 12 ≡ -6 mod 9 → -6 is a valid remainder since 9 | (-6-12)

Equivalent Classes
where the “x|y” means “x divides y”. There is a system behind this behavior. The set of numbers
{. . . ,−24,−15,−6,3,12,15,24, . . .}
form what is called an equivalence class. There are eight other equivalence classes
for the modulus 9:
{. . . ,−27,−18,−9, 0, 9,18,27, . . .}
{. . . ,−26,−17,−8, 1, 10,19,28, . . .}
...
{. . . ,−19,−10,−1, 8, 17,26,35, . . .}
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Example of Equivalent classes – mod 3

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  Properties of Modular Arithmetic

• Which remainder do we choose?

By convention, we usually agree on the smallest positive integer r as remainder. This
integer can be computed as

Remark: This is just a convention. Algorithmically we are free to choose any other valid
remainder to compute our crypto functions.

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  Properties of Modular Arithmetic
• Modular reduction can be performed at any point during a calculation
Let’s look first at an example. We want to compute 38 mod 7 (note that exponentiation is
extremely important in public-key cryptography).
1. Approach: Exponentiation followed by modular reduction
38 = 6561 ≡ 2 mod 7
Note that we have the intermediate result 6561 even though we know that the final result
can’t be larger than 6.
2. Approach: Exponentiation with intermediate modular reduction
38 = 34 34 = 81 x 81
At this point we reduce the intermediate results 81 modulo 7:
38 = 81 x 81 ≡ 4 x 4
The smallest positive member modulo 7 in the class is 4 (since 81 = 11 · 7 + 4 ).
4 x 4 = 16 ≡ 2 mod 7
Note that we can perform all these multiplications without pocket calculator, whereas
mentally computing 38 = 6561 is a bit challenging for most of us.

General rule: For most algorithms it is advantageous to reduce

intermediate results as soon as possible.
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More Examples of exponential Modular reduction

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  Properties of Modular Arithmetic
• How do we perform modular division?
First, note that rather than performing a division, we prefer to multiply by the inverse. Ex:
b / a≡ b x a-1 mod m
The inverse a-1 of a number a is defined such that:
a a-1 ≡ 1 mod m
Ex: What is 5 / 7 mod 9 ?
The inverse of 7 mod 9 is 4 since 7 x 4 ≡ 28 ≡ 1 mod 9, hence:
5 / 7 ≡ 5 x 4 = 20 ≡ 2 mod 9

• How is the inverse compute?

The inverse of a number a mod m only exists if and only if:
gcd (a, m) = 1
(note that in the example above gcd(5, 9) = 1, so that the inverse of 5 exists modulo 9)
For now, the best way of computing the inverse is to use exhaustive search.

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  An Algebraic View on Modulo Arithmetic: The Ring Zm (1)
We can view modular arithmetic in terms of sets and operations in the set. By doing
arithmetic modulo m we obtain the integer ring Zm .with the following properties:

• Closure: We can add and multiply any two numbers and the result is always in the ring.
• Addition and multiplication are associative, i.e., for all a,b,c  Zm
a + (b + c) = (a + b) + c
a  (b  c) = (a  b)  c
and addition is commutative: a + b = b + a
• The distributive law holds: a×(b+c) = (a×b)+(a×c) for all a,b,c 
Zm
• There is the neutral element 0 with respect to addition, i.e., for all a  Zm
a + 0  a mod m
• For all a  Zm, there is always an additive inverse element –a such that
a + (-a)  0 mod m
• There is the neutral element 1 with respect to multiplication, i.e., for all a  Zm
a  1  a mod m
• The multiplicative inverse a-1
a  a-1  1 mod m

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exists only for some, but not for all, elements in Zm.
  An Algebraic View on Modulo Arithmetic: The Ring Zm

Roughly speaking, a ring is a structure in which we can always add, subtract and
multiply, but we can only divide by certain elements (namely by those for which
a multiplicative inverse exists).

• We recall from above that an element a  Zm has a multiplicative inverse only if:
gcd (a, m) = 1
We say that a is coprime or relatively prime to m.

• Ex: We consider the ring Z9 = {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}

The elements 0, 3, and 6 do not have inverses since they are not coprime to 9.
The inverses of the other elements 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8 are:
1-1  1 mod 9 2-1  5 mod 9 4-1  7 mod 9
5-1  2 mod 9 7-1  4 mod 9 8-1  8 mod 9

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 Content of this Chapter

• Overview on the field of cryptology

• Basics of symmetric cryptography
• Attacking crypto schemes
• Substitution Cipher
• Modular arithmetic
• Shift (or Caesar) Cipher and Affine Cipher

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  Shift (or Caesar) Cipher (1)

• Ancient cipher, allegedly used by Julius Caesar

• Replaces each plaintext letter by another one.
•Replacement rule is very simple: Take letter that follows after k positions in the alphabet
Needs mapping from letters → numbers:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

• Example for k = 7
Plaintext = ATTACK = 0, 19, 19, 0, 2, 10
Ciphertext = haahr = 7, 0, 0, 7, 17
Note that the letters ”wrap around” at the end of the alphabet, which can be mathematically
be expressed as reduction modulo 26, e.g., 19 + 7 = 26 ≡ 0 mod 26

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  Shift (or Caesar) Cipher (2)

• Elegant mathematical description of the cipher.

Let k, x, y ε {0,1, …, 25}

• Encryption: y = ek(x) ≡ x + k mod 26
• Decryption: x = dk(x) ≡ y - k mod 26

• Q; Is the shift cipher secure?

• A: No! several attacks are possible, including:
• Exhaustive key search (key space is only 26!)
• Letter frequency analysis, similar to attack against substitution cipher

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  Affine Cipher (1)

• Extension of the shift cipher: rather than just adding the key to the plaintext, we also
multiply by the key
• We use for this a key consisting of two parts: k = (a, b)

Let k, x, y ε {0,1, …, 25}

• Encryption: y = ek(x) ≡ a x + b mod 26
• Decryption: x = dk(x) ≡ a-1( y – b) mod 26

• Since the inverse of a is needed for inversion, we can only use values for a for which:
gcd(a, 26) = 1
There are 12 values for a that fulfill this condition.
• From this follows that the key space is only 12 x 26 = 312 (cf. Sec 1.4 in Understanding
Cryptography)
• Again, several attacks are possible, including:
• Exhaustive key search and letter frequency analysis, similar to the attack against
the substitution cipher
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 Questions

15 ≡ 3 (mod 12 ) ?

10 ≡ -2 (mod 12 ) ?

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 Questions

-8 ≡ 7 (mod 5 ) ?

-3 ≡ -8 (mod 5 ) ?

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  Lessons Learned
• Never ever develop your own crypto algorithm unless you have a team of experienced
cryptanalysts checking your design.
• Do not use unproven crypto algorithms or unproven protocols.
• Attackers always look for the weakest point of a cryptosystem. For instance, a large key
space by itself is no guarantee for a cipher being secure; the cipher might still be vulnerable
against analytical attacks.
• Key lengths for symmetric algorithms in order to thwart exhaustive key-search attacks:
• 64 bit: insecure except for data with extremely short-term value
• 128 bit: long-term security of several decades, unless quantum computers become
available (quantum computers do not exist and perhaps never will)
• 256 bit: as above, but probably secure against attacks by quantum computers.
• Modular arithmetic is a tool for expressing historical encryption schemes, such as the affine
cipher, in a mathematically elegant way.

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