2021 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Computer Applications (ICPECA)
Improved Design of DES Algorithm Based on
Symmetric Encryption Algorithm
2021 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Computer Applications (ICPECA) | 978-1-7281-9004-4/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICPECA51329.2021.9362619
Wang Yihan
Network Communication and Information Security
Lab.Dept. of Computer Science & Technology
Yanbian University
Yanji, China
e-mail: 1169173622@qq.com
Abstract—To address issues in security & the threat posed
to the DES algorithm by brute force cracking, as well as the
low efficiency of the 3DES algorithm, I propose extending the
length of the DES algorithm's key. First, change the block
length of the DES algorithm from 64 bits to 128 bits and
expand the key length of the DES algorithm to double length;
secondly, iterative encryption is performed according to the
new plaintext grouping and the expanded key length. The two
groups are iteratively encrypted, and after every single
iteration the two sets of R part data obtained from this round
of encryption are exchanged, and then the next round of
iteration; finally, the improved DES algorithm is compared
with the DES algorithm and the 3DES algorithm by
experiment. The results showing that the operating efficiency
of the improved DES algorithm is better than 3DES algorithm.
Therefore, the improved algorithm is proposed here greatly
improves the security of the algorithm under the premise of
ensuring operating efficiency and has good application value.
Keywords— DES, key expansion, iterative algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
With the rapidly development of computer information
technology, human society has entered the era of
informatization, users are paying more and more attention to
the security of information while using the network, which
promotes the development of encrypted information. DES is
a typical representative of block ciphers and the first standard
algorithm being published. At present, because the key
length of the DES algorithm is too short, the DES algorithm
is no longer secure and is gradually being replaced by AES.
However, in order to make DES, which is an excellent
encryption algorithm, continue to play its role, scholars have
made endless improvements to DES.
DES (Data Encryption Algorithm, DEA) encryption
algorithm is the most widely used data encryption system. It
was established by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)
in 1977, which is now the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (National Institute of Standards and Technology,
NIST) adopted as the Federal Information Processing
Standard46. What we pointed by DES actually refers to Data
Encryption Algorithm[1].
Symmetric encryption algorithm is an earlier type of data
encryption algorithm, which has advantages of fast
encryption speed and high encryption efficiency. The data
encryption standard is a symmetric encryption algorithm
978-1-7281-9004-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
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Li Yongzhen*
Network Communication and Information Security
Lab.Dept. of Computer Science & Technology
Yanbian University
Yanji, China
e-mail: lyz2008@ybu.edu.cn
*Corresponding author
using key encryption. It is based on a symmetric algorithm
using 56-bit keys. DES is a typical representative of block
ciphers. Because the key length of the DES algorithm is too
short, the DES algorithm is no longer secure, and currently
DES has been replaced by AES[2].
Based on research above, this article will provide an
effective solution for brute force cracking on DES: Both keys
are used to encrypt two pieces of plain text, and some data
where in the two encryption processes are controlled during
the encryption process. Based on the encryption results
during the iteration of the encryption algorithm, the DES key
length has been extended. The security of DES has been
enhanced and compared with the improved algorithm 3DES
algorithm of DES, the efficiency will be higher than 3DES,
and the security will not be inferior to 3DES.
II. RELATED TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
A. Symmetric encryption algorithm
Symmetric encryption algorithm is an earlier encryption
algorithm and the technology is relatively mature. In the
algorithm, the sender needs to perform the special
encryption algorithm to process the plaintext and the key to
make it unrecognizable ciphertext and transmit it. After
received the ciphertext, the receivers have to use the same
key and the inverse operation of the encryption algorithm to
process the ciphertext to obtain the corresponding plaintext.
In a symmetric encryption algorithm, both parties of the
communication are use the same key for encryption and
decryption operations. The characteristics of the symmetric
encryption algorithm are algorithm disclosure, small amount
of calculation, fast encryption speed, and high encryption
efficiency, but the disadvantage is that both parties of the
communication have to keep the key that only they know ,
which make the key management difficulty, especially in
the environment of multi-person communication, the
number of keys increases sharply, giving the key
management a huge burden.
Symmetric encryption algorithms are mainly includes
the following contents:
DES algorithm, 3DES algorithm, TDEA algorithm,
Blowfish algorithm, RC5 algorithm, IDEA algorithm[3].
220 Shenyang, China
January 22-24, 2021
 B. Principle of DES encryption algorithm
DES is a symmetric encryption algorithm. It has two
inputs, plain texts and keys. The length of the plaintext and
the keys are both 64 bits, and 56 of them are valid keys, and
the remaining 8 bits are the parity bit[4]. The following figure
is flow of the schematic diagram of the DES algorithm.
discarded.
Step2 After discarding the check digit, the sub-key has 56
bits in total and the 56-bit sub-key is replaced by selection 1,
the result obtained is still 56 bits.
Step3 Divide the obtained 56-bits sub-keys into two
groups with 28 bits of each and move the two groups of sub-
keys to the left circular manner.
Step4: The shifted two sets of 28bits data are replaced by
selection 2, each group of 24bits data is filtered, and the two
screening sets of data are combined into 48bits as the subkey
of the i-th round.

Fig. 1. Example of a figure caption.

The processing steps for plaintext are as follows [5]:

Step1 Enter the plaintext into groups according to the
64bits packet length, and then rearrange the 64bits data
block P through the initial permutation IP matrix.
Step2 Use the f function to perform 16 rounds of
iterative transformation of P after the initial permutation IP
matrix transformation, and each round of transformation
needs to use a different subkey.
Step3 The 16th round output has 64bits, which is a
function of the input plaintext and the key. It produces a
64bits data block as the result of this group of encryption
through the inverse initial replacement IP-1 effect of the
initial replacement IP.
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of key generation
The formula for the i-th round of encryption above
process can be expressed as:
III. IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE DES ALGORITHM
LEi REi-1  Because the DES algorithm key is too short, someone
proposed the 3DES algorithm.3DES is using three different
keys to perform "encryption-decryption-encryption" on plain
REi LEi-1ͰF(RELˈK) 
About the implementation details of the DES algorithm
and the change of the f function:
Step1: The R0 is extended by E box, and the length of R0
is changed from 32 bits to 48 bits.
Step2: XOR the R0 and the 48-bit subkey after the E-box
expansion.
Step3: R0 after XOR operation with the sub items
undergoes S-box conversion.
Step4: The R0 has undergone the S box transformation is
subjected to P box transformation.
The following figure shows sub-key generation process,
the specific steps are as follows [6]:
 text. However, the processing speed of the 3DES algorithm
is not fast, and it’s rarely be used for new purposes except for
the case of paying special attention to backward
compatibility [7]. This improvement uses the idea of the
3DES algorithm to extend the key length without losing
efficiency.
A. Several ideas on improving the security of the DES
algorithm
In fact, increasing the key length to enhance DES
security is the easiest way. However, using only two keys to
encrypting DES twice cannot improve the security of the
DES algorithm. Because it’s assumed that two keys K1 and
K2 are used to encrypt the plaintext, the encryption process
is:
E Ek2(Ek1(P)) 
Step1: The initial key of the DES algorithm has 64 bits,
which is divided into a matrix. Since the 8th bit of each row Then there must be a K3 such as:
in the matrix is the check digit, the 8th bit of each row is

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 Ek3 Ek2 (Ek1(P)) 
An algorithm above obviously does not play any
substantial role in enhancing the security of the DES
algorithm.
Another idea is to select two keys to encrypt the odd and
even DES packets respectively. The specific implementation
steps are as follows:
The DES algorithm divides every 64-bit plaintext into a
group. We can select two sets of different keys for the odd
and even arrays in the plaintext group to encrypt the plaintext
group respectively. This method does improve the security of
the DES algorithm, but the difficulty of cracking is only
doubled, and the safety research of DES has not made
breakthrough progress yet.
 respectively encrypted with two different sets of keys Kl
and Kr.
Step4 The two sets of data obtained after each iteration:
the Ll part in the left packet L and the Lr part in the right
packet R are exchanged, and the exchanged result is used as
the input of the next iteration to continue encryption. By
analogy, the results of each iteration are exchanged.
Step5 Perform 16 rounds of iterative transformation
according to process above and merge the transformation
results into a data block with a length of 128 bits as the
result of this group of encryptions.
So DESnew is expressed in a general form. For the
encryption algorithm of round i:
It being said that if we want to use two keys for  Lri Lli 
encryption to achieve the security of the DES algorithm, we
need to improve the encryption process of the DES algorithm.
In order to make the results of the two encryption processes Rli Lli-1ͰF(RlLˈK) 
unpredictable, it is the best way to communicate the two
encryption processes. After two encryption processes are
communicated, the generated ciphertext becomes a whole, TABLE I. DES ALGORITHM AND DES IMPROVED ALGORITHM
and If they are not communicated, the resulting ciphertext COMPARISON TABLE
can distinguish which data blocks were encrypted by two Comparison of DES and DESnew
different keys, which make it difficult to achieve the desired parameter
DES DESnew
effect the security of the DES algorithm. Plain text packet 64 bits
128bits
length
B. Basic principles of improved algorithm Key required for
1 2
encryption
Each plaintext packet Each plaintext group is
is encrypted only encrypted with two sets
Encryption times
once by the DES of DES algorithm
algorithm simultaneously

IV. ALGORITHM EFFICIENCY

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of DES improved algorithm
Figure 3 shows the main encryption process of the
improved DES algorithm.
Step1 The length of the plaintext packet is changed from
the original 64bits to 128bits.
Step2 Divide the data of each group of 128 bits into the
left group L and the right group R, each group is 64 bits.
Step3 The left group L and the right group R are
Algorithm efficiency refers to the execution time of the
algorithm, and the execution time of the algorithm needs to
be measured by the time consumed when the program
compiled according to the algorithm runs on computers.
From the perspective of algorithm structure and
theoretical analysis, the execution efficiency of the improved
DES algorithm proposed in this article will be similar to DES
algorithm itself. In the improved algorithm, although the
improved algorithm encryption requires two DES
encryptions, the improvement is the encryption algorithm
reads a 128-bit data stream while reading. Compared with
DES reading a 64-bit data stream, the improved encryption
algorithm and the DES encryption algorithm are both
perform when encrypting the same block of plaintext.
Encrypted once, so theoretically, the improved encryption
algorithm and the DES algorithm has the same encryption
efficiency.

TABLE II. COMPARISON OF ALGORITHM EFFICIENCY

Algorithm efficiency comparison table

Algorithm Run time of encrypted 10K
Run time of encrypted 100K files/ms Run time of encrypted 1000K files/ms
files/ms
DES 68,70,81,83,82 293,282,294,291,286 2326,2314,2396,2312,2288
3DES 80,84,86,97,85 353,344,344,361,367 2952,2828,2995,2846,2925
DESnew 108,111,114,123,108 532,613,696,642,641 5036,4905,4926,5115,5167

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After averaging the 5 data obtained, the following
statistical chart is obtained according to the table II grid.
Fig. 4. Histogram ofaverage algotithm efficiency
From the analysis results above, it being said that the
improved algorithm is slightly inferior to the DES algorithm
in efficiency, but far higher than the 3DES algorithm.
Regarding security, even the improved DES algorithm
cannot be compared specifically with the 3DES algorithm, it
is undoubtedly higher than the original DES algorithm.
V. CONCLUSION
The improved DES algorithm proposed here increases
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the security of the algorithm from the three aspects of
increasing the packet length, key length and the exchange of
each round of iterative results. The algorithm efficiency is
much higher than the 3DES algorithm, and the security is
compared with the original DES. The algorithm is still better.
Therefore, the method proposed here has nice application
value. In the future research, further research will be
conducted on the efficiency of the algorithm to make a
better improve of algorithm.
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[4] Yu Wei. Research on the key extension method and security of DES
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