Block Cipher Modes of Operation and Stream Ciphers

CSE 651: Introduction to Network Security

Abstract
We will discuss
How to use block ciphers? RC4: a widely used stream cipher Problems with WEPs use of RC4

Modes of Operations

How to use a block cipher?

Block ciphers encrypt fixed-size blocks
e.g. DES encrypts 64-bit blocks

We need some way to encrypt a message of arbitrary length

e.g. a message of 1000 bytes

NIST defines several ways to do it

called modes of operation
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Five Modes of Operation

Electronic codebook mode (ECB) Cipher block chaining mode (CBC) most popular Output feedback mode (OFB) Cipher feedback mode (CFB) Counter mode (CTR)
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Message Padding
The plaintext message is broken into blocks, P1, P2, P3, ... The last block may be short of a whole block and needs padding. Possible padding:
Known non-data values (e.g. nulls) Or a number indicating the size of the pad Or a number indicating the size of the plaintext The last two schemes may require an extra block.
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Electronic Code Book (ECB)

The plaintext is broken into blocks, P1, P2, P3, ... Each block is encrypted independently: Ci = EK(Pi) For a given key, this mode behaves like we have a gigantic codebook, in which each plaintext block has an entry, hence the name Electronic Code Book

Remarks on ECB
Strength: its simple. Weakness: Repetitive information contained in the plaintext may show in the ciphertext, if aligned with blocks. If the same message (e.g., an SSN) is encrypted (with the same key) and sent twice, their ciphertexts are the same. Typical application: secure transmission of short pieces of information (e.g. a temporary encryption key)
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Cipher Block Chaining (CBC)

The plaintext is broken into blocks: P , P2 , P3 , ... 1 Each plaintext block is XORed ( chained ) with the previous ciphertext block before encryption (hence the name): Ci = E K ( Ci 1 Pi ) C0 = IV Use an Initial Vector ( IV ) to start the process. Decryption : Pi = Ci 1 D K (Ci ) Application : general block-oriented transmission.
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Cipher Block Chaining (CBC)

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Remarks on CBC
The encryption of a block depends on the current and all blocks before it. So, repeated plaintext blocks are encrypted differently. Initialization Vector (IV)
Must be known to both the sender & receiver Typically, IV is either a fixed value or is sent encrypted in ECB mode before the rest of ciphertext.

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 Without knowing the key k , for any data block x, Ek ( x ) is unknown to the adversary. To encrypt P , P2 , P3 ,..., we may use Ek to generate 1 a key stream (a sequence of "masks") K1 , K 2 , K3 ,..., and encrypt Pi as Ci = Pi Ki . Three different ways to generate K1 , K 2 , K3 ,...

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Cipher feedback mode (basic version)

Plaintext blocks: p1, p2, Key: k Basic idea: construct key stream k1, k2, k3, Encryption:
c0 = IV ki = Ek (ci 1 ), for i 1 ci = pi ki , for i 1

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Cipher Feedback (CFB) Mode

The plaintext is a sequence of segments of s bits (where s block-size): P , P2 , P3 , P4 , 1 Encryption is used to generate a sequence of keys, each of s bits: K1 , K 2 , K 3 , K 4 , The ciphertext is C1 , C2 , C3 , C4 , , where Ci = Pi K i How to generate the key stream?
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Generating Key Stream for CFB

The input to the block cipher is a shift register x; its value at stage i is denoted as xi . Initially, x1 = an initial vector (IV). For i > 1, xi = shift-left-s -bits(xi 1 ) PCi 1 . Then, K i = s -most-significant-bits(E K ( xi )).

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Encryption in CFB Mode

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Decryption in CFB Mode

Generate key stream K1 , K 2 , K 3 , K 4 , the same way as for encryption. Then decrypt each ciphertext segment as: Pi = Ci K i

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Remark on CFB
The block cipher is used as a stream cipher. Appropriate when data arrives in bits/bytes. s can be any value; a common value is s = 8. A ciphertext segment depends on the current and all preceding plaintext segments. A corrupted ciphertext segment during transmission will affect the current and next several plaintext segments. How many plaintext segments will be affected?
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Output feedback mode (basic version)

Plaintext blocks: p1, p2, Key: k Basic idea: construct key stream k1, k2, k3, Encryption:
k0 = IV ki = Ek (ki 1 ), for i 1 ci = pi ki , for i 1

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Output Feedback (OFB) Mode

Very similar to Cipher Feedback in structure. But K i 1 rather than Ci 1 is fed back to the next stage. As in CFB, the input to the block cipher is a shift register x; its value at stage i is denoted as xi . Initially, x1 = an initial vector (IV). For i > 1, xi = shift-left-s -bits(xi 1 ) P Ki 1. Then, K i = s -most-significant-bits(E K ( xi )).
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Cipher Feedback

Output Feedback

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Remark on OFB
The block cipher is used as a stream cipher. Appropriate when data arrives in bits/bytes. Advantage:
more resistant to transmission errors; a bit error in a ciphertext segment affects only the decryption of that segment.

Disadvantage:
Cannot recover from lost ciphertext segments; if a ciphertext segment is lost, all following segments will be decrypted incorrectly (if the receiver is not aware of the segment loss).

IV should be generated randomly each time and sent with the ciphertext.
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Counter Mode (CTR)

Plaintext blocks: p1, p2, p3, Key: k Basic idea: construct key stream k1, k2, k3, Encryption:

T1 = IV (random) Ti = IV + i - 1 Ci = Pi EK(Ti) C = (IV, C1, C2, C3, ...)

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Remark on CTR
Strengthes:
Needs only the encryption algorithm Fast encryption/decryption; blocks can be processed (encrypted or decrypted) in parallel; good for high speed links Random access to encrypted data blocks

IV should not be reused.

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Stream Ciphers

Vernams one-time pad cipher Key = k1k2k3k4 K (random, used one-time only) Plaintext = m1m2 m3m4 K Ciphertext = c1c2c3c4 K where ci = mi ki Can be proved to be unconditionally secure.

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Stream Cipher Diagram

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Stream Ciphers
Typically, process the plaintext byte by byte. So, the plaintext is a stream of bytes: P , P2 , P3 , 1 Use a key K as the seed to generate a sequence of pseudorandom bytes (keystream): K1 , K 2 , K 3 , The ciphertext is C1 , C2 , C3 , C4 , , where Ci = Pi Ki Various stream ciphers differ in the way they generate keystreams.
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Stream Ciphers
For a stream cipher to be secure, the keystream g should have a large period, and g should be as random as possible, each of the 256 values appearing about equally often. The same keystream must not be reused. That is, the input key K must be different for each plaintext (if the pseudorandom generator is deterministic).
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The RC4 Stream Cipher

Designed by Ron Rivest in 1987 for RSA Security. Kept as a trade secret until leaked out in 1994. The most popular stream cipher. Simple and fast. With a 128 bits key, the period is > 10100 . Used in the SSL/TLS standards (for secure Web communication), IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard, Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption, and many others.
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RC4
Two vectors of bytes: S [0], S [1], S [2], K , S [255] T [0], T [1], T [2], K , T [255] Key: variable length, from 1 to 256 bytes Initialization: 1. S [i ] i, for 0 i 255 2. T [i ] K [i mod key-length], for 0 i 255 (i.e., fill up T [0..255] with the key K repeatedly.)
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RC4: Initial Permutation

Initial Permutation of S : j0 for i 0 to 255 do j ( j + S [i ] + T [i ] ) mod 256 Swap S [i ], S [ j ] This part of RC4 is generally known as the Key Scheduling Algorithm (KSA). After KSA, the input key and the temporary vector T will no longer be used.
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RC4: Key Stream Generation

Key stream generation: i, j 0 while (true) i ( i + 1 ) mod 256 j ( j + S [i ] ) mod 256 Swap S [i ], S [ j ] t ( S [i ] + S [ j ] ) mod 256 k S [t ] output k
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Security of RC4
The keystream generated by RC4 is biased.
The second byte is biased toward zero with high probability. The first few bytes are strongly non-random and leak information about the input key.

Defense: discard the initial n bytes of the keystream.

Called RC4-drop[n-bytes]. Recommended values for n = 256, 768, or 3072 bytes.

Efforts are underway (e.g. the eSTREAM project) to develop more secure stream ciphers.
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RC4 and WEP

WEP is a protocol using RC4 to encrypt packets for transmission over IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN. WEP requires each packet to be encrypted with a separate RC4 key. The RC4 key for each packet is a concatenation of a 24-bit IV (initialization vector) and a 40 or 104-bit longterm key.
l RC4 key: IV (24) Long-term key (40

or 104 bits)
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802.11 frames using WEP

Header IV

l Packet

ICV

FCS

encrypted

ICV: integrity check value (for data integrity) FCS: frame check sequence (for error detection) Both use CRC32
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 WEP has been shown to be insecure. There is an article, Breaking 104 bit WEP in less than 60 seconds, discussing how to discover the RC4 key by analyzing encrypted ARP packets.

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