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Network Security and Cryptography
Network Security and Cryptography
underlies many of the security mechanisms in use which is
Abstract— As the usage of computers and data networks go on cryptographic techniques. Thus the focus on it.
increasing, the security of data in the network is becoming more
and more critical. As information has almost become one of the Any action that compromises the security of information
most valuable resources in all walks of life, error tolerance is owned by an organization is called a security attack.
much lesser and thus it becomes necessary to give the network
Information security is about how to prevent attacks, or failing
proper security and protect the data. This paper first analyzed
network security and its various components, and then extends that, to detect attacks on information-based systems.
the same concepts to the OSI model. Next is the basic principles
of cryptography and its classification along with basic
terminology, followed by some of the widely used algorithms for II. OSI SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
block ciphers along with their working principles and logical
algorithms. The advantages of the currently existing methods
ITU-T X.800 Security Architecture for OSI defines a
have been analyzed and various techniques described.
systematic way of defining and providing security
requirements.
Index Terms —cryptography, security attacks, security
mechanism, security services, block ciphers, permutations A. Security Services
ciphers, Feistal Cipher Structure, data encryption standard, The OSI architecture categorizes services under five major
public key, substitution and transposition. categories:
• Authentication - assurance that the communicating entity
is the one claimed
I. INTRODUCTION • Access Control - prevention of the unauthorized use of a
resource
I • Data Confidentiality –protection of data from
unauthorized disclosure
nformation Security has continuously been changing and tends • Data Integrity - assurance that data received is as sent by
to become more demanding. Information is a strategic an authorized entity
resource, and a significant part of the organizational budgets is • Non-Repudiation - protection against denial by one of
dedicated towards managing it. The growing usage of the parties in a communication
computers implies more protection of files and information.
Computers need tools to protect the stored files while B. Security Mechanisms
communication links need to protect the information while
being transferred. Network security is thus needed to protect Classified broadly into two types:
the information rather data, during transmission. • specific security mechanisms:
(encipherment, digital signatures, access controls, data
Security of information may have different objectives such as integrity, authentication exchange, traffic padding, routing
confidentiality, integrity and availability. Confidentiality control, notarization)
implies secrecy and in synonymous to the protection of • pervasive security mechanisms:
information value. Integrity is basically ensuring the accuracy (trusted functionality, security labels, event detection, security
of data and availability is its proper delivery. audit trails, security recovery)
Two keys are used for the encryption and decryption of the
data or message. One is public and the other is private.
Though both of them are related to each other mathematically,
the private key cannot be derived from the public key.
Message encrypted by the public key can only be decrypted by
a private key. Usually concepts of number theory and
relatively prime numbers are used. Eulers Function is used to
compute the relatively prime numbers lesser than a given
number. Ron Rivet gave an algorithm to compute the keys as
natural numbers. Two prime numbers p and q are chosen and
their product is N. Eulers function say E(N) is then computed.
A random integer e is selected such that gcd of E and e is 1.
Then d is calculated as mod(E)/e. Where mod() is the modulus
function. The public key is a function of N and e while the
private of N and d. (Something of the sort M^e*mod(N).
where M is the message data).
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Network Security is of critical importance and to provide the
same cryptology with the study of various encryption and
decryption methods is necessary. Various algorithms are
available for this purpose, and selection should be based on
factors and parameters such as fault tolerance, type of data,
amount of data and other system constraints or requirements.
Block ciphers are more favorable for the purpose of
computational ease. Within block ciphers there are various
conceptually diverse methods. Each method has its own
limitations and thus the one should be chosen in which its
advantages weigh out the disadvantages. Public key
cryptology is one method which doesn’t have most of the
disadvantages of other methods and thus has been popular
since long.
REFERENCES
[1] Dr. Bill Figg. “Data Networks and Cryptography,”Dakota
State University, 2000.
[2] William Stallings “Cryptography and Internet Security,"
Upper Saddle River,NJ,Prentice Hall, 1999
[3] William Stallings, “Network Security Essentials:
Applications and Standards,3e