Page 1 of 2

CO1508 Computer Systems & Security – Week 03

Cryptography Exercises – Cryptool 1 – Answers

Which analysis tool would be the most effective for a cryptanalyst to use to decipher a text
encrypted with the Caesar cipher, and why?

In this case, the histogram would offer the most valuable information to a cryptanalyst. The
Caesar cipher’s primary weakness is that to statistical analysis which this tool clearly
demonstrates. From the tool’s findings, it is very easy to compare the prevalence of each letter
of the ciphertext to the prevalence of letters in the English language. After that, conclusions can
easily be made as to what characters are used to substitute each letter.

What do you notice about the histogram results when the text is encrypted with the
Vigenère cipher in comparison to the results of the Caesar cipher? Why is this the case?

The results appear a lot more randomized. It’s now harder to draw conclusions in
comparison to the Caesar cipher. This is the case as Vigenère cipher uses a form of modified
Caesar cipher to encrypt data therefore a character’s representation can change throughout
the course of the message. The histogram measures the prevalence of individual characters.
These individual characters however do not directly correlate to the original text as they do
with the Caesar cipher.

Task 1

Sodlqwhaw wr eh hqfubswhg.
Plaintext to be encrypted.

Monoalphabetic Substitution Cipher

Here, the key is the alphabet is reversed so A à Z, B à Y and so on. The decrypted text is:

CO1508 Computer Systems and Security, UCLAN – 2019-2020

 Page 2 of 2

Recall, Caesar’s cipher falls in the category of substitution

monoalphabetic ciphers (i.e., each element from the plaintext will
be replaced with a unique element from the space of ciphertexts).
For this reason, a cipehertext preserves the relative frequency at
which plaintext elements appear in the corresponding plaintext. In
Vernam cipher, encryption is performed by means of eXclusive-OR
(XOR) logical operation (plaintext is XORed with an encryption key).
If an encryption key is chosen randomly and is at least as long as
the plaintext to be encrypted, XOR encryption (one-time pad) is
provably (perfectly) secure.

Directed Task – The Assignment

Please make sure students started their assignment. If not, encourage them to do so.

CO1508 Computer Systems and Security, UCLAN – 2019-2020