The Techniques Used

For Encryption

1
Introduction:

“In this internet world nowadays, the security for the digital images has become highly important since

the communication by transmitting of digital products over the open network occur very frequently. In

this paper, from several articles I determined that the existing works on the encryption techniques. Those

encryption techniques are studied and analyzed well to promote the performance of the encryption

methods also to ensure the security proceedings. To sum up, all the techniques are useful for real-time

encryption. Each technique is unique in its own way, which might be suitable for different applications.

Everyday new encryption technique is evolving hence fast and secure conventional encryption

techniques will always work out with high rate of security.”

Encryption:

“The conversion of data from a readable format into an encoded format that can only be read or

processed after it's been decrypted. Encryption is considered the basic building block of data security,

widely used by large organizations, small businesses, and individual consumers. It’s the most

straightforward and crucial means of protecting information that passes from endpoints to servers.”

Essential Types of Encryption Techniques:

“There are several data encryption approaches available to choose from. Most internet security (IS)

professionals break down encryption into two distinct types: symmetric and asymmetric. These in turn

are further broken down into 8 different Methods. We’ll explore each one separately.”

Symmetric Encryption Type: “Also called private-key cryptography or a secret key algorithm, this

method requires the sender and the receiver to have access to the same key. So, the recipient needs to

have the key before the message is decrypted. This method works best for closed systems, which have

2
less risk of a third-party intrusion. On the positive side, symmetric encryption is faster than asymmetric

encryption. However, on the negative side, both parties need to make sure the key is stored securely and

available only to the software that needs to use it.”

Asymmetric Encryption Type: “Also called public-key cryptography, this method uses two keys for

the encryption process, a public and a private key, which are mathematically linked. The user employs

one key for encryption and the other for decryption, though it doesn’t matter which you choose first. As

the name implies, the public key is freely available to anyone, whereas the private key remains with the

intended recipients only, who need it to decipher the messages. Both keys are simply large numbers that

aren’t identical but are paired with each other, which is where the asymmetric part comes in.”

8 Different Encryption Techniques (Methods):

The description of the 8 Different Encryption Techniques (Methods) are given as under:

1. “Triple DES-It was developed to replace the original DES algorithm (Data Encryption

Standard) algorithm. Actually, the DES was using 56 bits key size that later became vulnerable

to brute force attacks because of increased computational power. Triple DES provides a simple

method to expand the key size of DES (by applying DES algorithm thrice to each data block),

without the need to develop a completely new block cipher algorithm. The total key length adds

up to 168 bits. Because of the meet-in-the-middle attack (MITM), the effective security it

provides is only 112 bits. Microsoft’s Outlook, OneNote, and System Center Configuration

Manager 2012 use Triple DES to protect user content and system data. It is also used in many

electronic payment industries and other financial services.”

2. “Blowfish-Blowfish works with a 64-bit block length and a variable key size, ranging between

32 bits to 448 bits.” “The encryption involves 16 round Feistel Cipher, using large key-

3
 dependent S-boxes. On the downside, it is vulnerable to birthday attacks, especially in contexts

like HTTPS. It is recommended that you shouldn’t use Blowfish to encrypt files larger than 4 GB

due to its small 64-bit block size. Blowfish can be found in dozens of software categories,

including database security, e-commerce platform, file and disk encryption, password

management and archiving tools, steganography, file transfer, secure shell, and email

encryption.”

3. “AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)-AES is the successor of DES and trusted as the

standard by the United States government and various organizations. Low RAM requirement and

high speed were the main reason it was selected to hide top-secret information. The algorithm

can perform well on a wide range of hardware, from 8-bit smart cards to high-performance

processors. Although AES is extremely efficient in 128-bit form, it also uses keys of 192 and 256

bits for heavy security. It has 10 rounds for 128-bit keys, 12 rounds for 192-bit keys, and 14

rounds for 256-bit keys. The same key is used for both encryption and decryption of data. To

date, no practical attacks against AES have been discovered. It is used in many different

protocols and transmission technologies, such as WPA2 protection of Wi-Fi network, Voice-

over-IP technology, and signaling data.”

4. “Twofish-Computer security professional Bruce Schneier is the mastermind behind Blowfish

and its successor Twofish. The algorithm has a Feistel structure like DES and employs a

Maximum Distance Separable matrix. Twofish is a symmetric key encryption method that uses

128-bit block size and key size up to 256 bits. One half of the n-bit key is used as an encryption

key and the other half is used to modify the encryption algorithm (key-dependent S-boxes). It is

slightly slower than AES but somewhat faster for 256-bit keys. The algorithm is flexible – it can

be used in network apps where keys are changed frequently, and in systems where only a small

4
 amount of RAM and ROM is available for use. You will find it bundled in encryption tools like

GPG, True Crypt, and Photo Encrypt.”

5. “RSA-It is an asymmetric key encryption technique and a standard for encrypting data sent over

the Internet. In this approach, the encryption key differs from the decryption key, which is kept

private. The asymmetry depends on the practical difficulty of factoring the product of two large

prime numbers. The strength of encryption increases exponentially with the increase in key size,

which is typically 1024 or 2048 bits long. While implementing, RSA must be combined with

some sort of padding scheme so that no message results in insecure cipher texts. RSA is not

governed by any active patents; anyone can use it. It can perform encryption, decryption, and

signature verification, all with the same two functions. The only downside of using public-key

cryptography for encryption is speed. Also, it might be vulnerable to impersonation, even if the

user’s private keys are not available.”

6. “Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange-Also known as Exponential Key Exchange, It is a public key

cryptography technique followed shortly after RSA. It lets two parties with no prior knowledge

of each other jointly establish a shared secret key over an insecure channel. The limitation of this

algorithm is the lack of authentication. Data using Diffie-Hellman are vulnerable to man-in-the-

middle attacks. It is well suited for use in data communication, but less often used for data

archived/stored over a long period of time. This public domain algorithm is used to secure a wide

range of Internet services. It provides the basis for multiple authenticated protocols and is used to

provide forward secrecy in Transport Layer Security’s ephemeral modes.”

7. “ElGamal Encryption-Is asymmetric key cryptography based on the Diffie-Hellman Key

Exchange. “Its security depends on the difficulty of computing discrete logs in a large prime

modulus. In this approach, the same plaintext gives a different cipher text each time it is

5
 encrypted. However, the cipher text generated is twice as long as the plaintext. The encryption

can be defined over any cyclic group, and its security depends on the properties of the underlying

group as well as the padding scheme used on the plaintext. ElGamal encryption is deployed in

recent versions of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and GNU Privacy Guard. It is also used in a hybrid

cryptosystem, where the plaintext is encrypted using a symmetric cryptosystem, and ElGamal is

then used to encrypt the key.”

8. “ECC-Elliptic Curve Cryptography is an asymmetric encryption method based on the algebraic

structure of elliptic curves.” “Instead of the traditional approach of generating keys as the

product of large prime numbers, ECC creates keys through the properties of the elliptic curve

equation. The security of ECC is based on the ability to calculate a point multiplication and the

inability to calculate the multiplicand provided the original and product points. Elliptic curve size

determines the difficulty level of the problem. It can provide a level of security with a 164-bit

key that other systems (like RSA) require a 1024 bit key to achieve. The elliptic curves are

applicable for digital signatures, key agreement, and pseudo-random generators. NSA is the

biggest supporter of this technology, and it is being developed as the successor to the RSA

approach. In August 2015, NSA announced that they are planning to use Elliptic Curve Diffie-

Hellman for key exchange and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature algorithm for digital signature.”

6
References:
 Article: “ENCRYPTION TECHNIQUES: A TIMELINE APPROACH”
 Authors: T Morkel, JHP Eloff
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267230842_ENCRYPTION_TECHNIQUES_A_TIMELINE_A
PPROACH_Author_and_co-author

 Article: “An Overview of Video Encryption Techniques”

 Authors: “M. Abomhara, Omar Zakaria, Othman O. Khalifa”

 Article: “A Survey on Various Encryption Techniques” ISSN: 2231-2307, Volume-2, Issue-1, and
March 2012
 Authors: “John Justin M, Manimurugan S”

 Article: “Modern Encryption Techniques for Cloud Computing Randomness and Performance Testing”
 Authors: “Sherif El-etriby, Eman M. Mohamed, Hatem S. Abdul-kader”
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264235540_Modern_Encryption_Techniques_for_Cloud_Comp
uting_Randomness_and_Performance_Testing