Cryptography and Network Security Overview & Chapter 1

Reader’s Guide

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming,
but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking,
but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

—The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Roadmap

 Cryptographic algorithms

 symmetric ciphers

 asymmetric encryption

 hash functions

 Mutual Trust

 Network Security

 Computer Security

Standards Organizations

 National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)

 Internet Society (ISOC)

 International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication

Standardization Sector (ITU-T)

 International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

Chapter 1 – Introduction

 The combination of space, time, and strength that must be considered as

the basic elements of this theory of defense makes this a fairly complicated
matter. Consequently, it is not easy to find a fixed point of departure..

— On War, Carl Von Clausewitz

Computer Security

 the protection afforded to an automated information system in order to

attain the applicable objectives of preserving the integrity, availability and
confidentiality of information system resources (includes hardware,
software, firmware, information/data, and telecommunications)

Key Security Concepts

Levels of Impact

 can define 3 levels of impact from a security breach

 Low

 Moderate

 High

Examples of Security Requirements

 confidentiality – student grades

 integrity – patient information

 availability – authentication service

Computer Security Challenges

1. not simple

2. must consider potential attacks

3. procedures used counter-intuitive

4. involve algorithms and secret info

5. must decide where to deploy mechanisms

6. battle of wits between attacker / admin

7. not perceived on benefit until fails

8. requires regular monitoring

9. too often an after-thought

regarded as impediment to using system

OSI Security Architecture

 ITU-T X.800 “Security Architecture for OSI”

 defines a systematic way of defining and providing security requirements

 for us it provides a useful, if abstract, overview of concepts we will study

Aspects of Security

 consider 3 aspects of information security:

 security attack

 security mechanism

 security service

 note terms

 threat – a potential for violation of security

 attack – an assault on system security, a deliberate attempt to evade

security services

Passive Attacks
Active Attacks

Security Service

 enhance security of data processing systems and information

transfers of an organization

 intended to counter security attacks

 using one or more security mechanisms

 often replicates functions normally associated with physical

documents

• which, for example, have signatures, dates; need protection

from disclosure, tampering, or destruction; be notarized or
witnessed; be recorded or licensed
Security Services

 X.800:

“a service provided by a protocol layer of communicating open systems, which

ensures adequate security of the systems or of data transfers”

 RFC 2828:

“a processing or communication service provided by a system to give a specific

kind of protection to system resources”

Security Services (X.800)

 Authentication - assurance that communicating entity is the one claimed

 have both peer-entity & data origin authentication

 Access Control - prevention of the unauthorized use of a resource

 Data Confidentiality –protection of data from unauthorized disclosure

 Data Integrity - assurance that data received is as sent by an authorized

entity

 Non-Repudiation - protection against denial by one of the parties in a

communication

 Availability – resource accessible/usable

Security Mechanism

 feature designed to detect, prevent, or recover from a security attack

 no single mechanism that will support all services required

 however one particular element underlies many of the security

mechanisms in use:

 cryptographic techniques

 hence our focus on this topic

Security Mechanisms (X.800)

 specific security mechanisms:

 encipherment, digital signatures, access controls, data integrity,

authentication exchange, traffic padding, routing control,
notarization

 pervasive security mechanisms:

 trusted functionality, security labels, event detection, security audit

trails, security recovery

Model for Network Security

Model for Network Security

 using this model requires us to:

1. design a suitable algorithm for the security transformation

2. generate the secret information (keys) used by the algorithm

3. develop methods to distribute and share the secret information

4. specify a protocol enabling the principals to use the transformation

and secret information for a security service

Model for Network Access Security

Model for Network Access Security

 using this model requires us to:

1. select appropriate gatekeeper functions to identify users

2. implement security controls to ensure only authorised users access

designated information or resources
Summary

 topic roadmap & standards organizations

 security concepts:

 confidentiality, integrity, availability

 X.800 security architecture

 security attacks, services, mechanisms

 models for network (access) security

 Cryptography and Network Security Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Classical Encryption Techniques

 "I am fairly familiar with all the forms of secret writings, and am myself the
author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyze one
hundred and sixty separate ciphers," said Holmes..

—The Adventure of the Dancing Men, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Symmetric Encryption

 or conventional / private-key / single-key

 sender and recipient share a common key

 all classical encryption algorithms are private-key

 was only type prior to invention of public-key in 1970’s

 and by far most widely used

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

Symmetric Cipher Model

Requirements

 two requirements for secure use of symmetric encryption:

 a strong encryption algorithm

 a secret key known only to sender / receiver

 mathematically have:

Y = E(K, X)

X = D(K, Y)

 assume encryption algorithm is known

 implies a secure channel to distribute key

Cryptography

 can 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

Cryptanalysis

 objective to recover key not just message

 general approaches:

 cryptanalytic attack

 brute-force attack

 if either succeed all key use compromised

Cryptanalytic Attacks

 ciphertext only

 only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical, know or can identify

plaintext
  known plaintext

 know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext

 chosen plaintext

 select plaintext and obtain ciphertext

 chosen ciphertext

 select ciphertext and obtain plaintext

 chosen text

 select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt

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

Brute Force Search

 always possible to simply try every key

 most basic attack, proportional to key size

 assume either know / recognise plaintext

 Key Size Number of Time required at 1 Time required at 106
(bits) Alternative Keys decryption/µs 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 5.4  1018 years
years

168 2168 = 3.7  1050 2167 µs = 5.9  1036 5.9  1030 years
years

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

(permutation years
)

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

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

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(k, p) = (p + k) mod (26)

p = D(k, c) = (c – k) mod (26)

Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher

 only have 26 possible ciphers

 A maps to A,B,..Z

 could simply try each in turn

 a brute force search

 given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters

 do need to recognize when have plaintext

 eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"

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