Traditional Symmetric-

Key Ciphers
 Chapter 2
Traditional Symmetric-Key
Ciphers
Introduction

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Introduction

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 Cryptanalysis
• The science and art of breaking those codes.
• Beside cryptography techniques, we also need to know cryptanalysis
techniques.
• Not to break other people’s codes, but to know how vulnerable our
cryptosystem is.
• Cryptanalysis helps us create better secret codes.

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 Ciphertext-Only Attack
• Eve has access to only some ciphertext.
• Eve trying to find both key and plain text.
• Methods can be used in ciphertext-only attack:
• Brute-Force Attack
• Statistical Attack
• Pattern Attack

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 Ciphertext-Only Attack
Methods can be used in ciphertext-only attack:
• Brute-Force Attack
• Eve tries to use all possible keys.
• Eve decrypts the ciphertext with every possible key until the plaintext makes
sense.
• To prevent this type of attack, the number of possible keys must be very large.

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 Ciphertext-Only Attack
Methods can be used in ciphertext-only attack: (cont.)
• Statistical Attack
• The cryptanalyst can benefit from the characteristics of the plaintext language.
• Letter E is the most frequently used letter in English text.
• The cryptanalyst finds the mostly-used character in the ciphertext and assumes
that the corresponding plaintext character is E.
• To prevent this type of attack, the cipher should hide the characteristics of the
language.
• Digram
• Two-letter combination
• Most common is th , in , to , an, is , ed.
• Trigram
• Three-letter combination
• Most frequent is the , for , ing , was , are
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 Ciphertext-Only Attack
Methods can be used in ciphertext-only attack: (cont.)
• Statistical Attack

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 Ciphertext-Only Attack
Methods can be used in ciphertext-only attack: (cont.)
• Pattern Attack
• Some ciphers may create a pattern in the ciphertext.
• A cryptanalyst may use a pattern attack to break the cipher.
• To prevent this type of attack, use ciphers that make the ciphertext look as
random as possible.

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 Known-Plaintext Attack
• Eve has access to some previous plaintext/ciphertext pairs.
• Ex. Alice has sent a secret message to Bob, but she has later made
the contents of the message public.
• Eve has kept both the ciphertext and the plaintext.
• Assuming that Alice has not changed her key.
• Less likely to happen because Alice may have changed her key or
may have not disclosed the contents of any previous messages.

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 Chosen-Plaintext Attack
• Similar to the known-plaintext attack, but the plaintext/ciphertext pairs have
been chosen by the attacker herself.
• Ex. if Eve has access to Alice’s computer. She can choose a plaintext and
intercept the created ciphertext, without knowing the key.
• This attack is much easier to implement, but it is much less likely to happen.

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 Chosen-Ciphertext Attack
• Eve chooses some ciphertext and decrypts it to form a
ciphertext/plaintext pair.
• This can happen if Eve has access to Bob’s computer.

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Cryptanalysis

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Categories of Traditional Ciphers
• Symmetric-key ciphers is divided into two categories:
• substitution ciphers and transposition ciphers.
• Substitution cipher
• replace one symbol in the ciphertext with another symbol.
• Transposition cipher
• reorder the position of symbols in the plaintext.

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 Substitution ciphers
• Substitution ciphers can be categorized as:
• monoalphabetic ciphers or polyalphabetic ciphers.

• Monoalphabetic Ciphers: a character • Polyalphabetic ciphers: each

in the plaintext is always changed to occurrence of a character may
the same character in the ciphertext have a different substitute.
regardless of its position in the text. • Autokey Cipher
• Additive Cipher • Playfair Cipher
• Shift Cipher • Vigenere Cipher
• Caesar Cipher • Hill Cipher
• Multiplicative Ciphers • One-Time Pad
• Affine Cipher • Rotor Cipher
• Enigma Machine

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 Monoalphabetic Ciphers
• The relationship between a symbol in the plaintext to a symbol in
the ciphertext is always one-to-one.
• The cipher is monoalphabetic because both L’s are encrypted as O’s.

• The cipher is not monoalphabetic because each L is encrypted by a

different character.

Ms. Sundos Sobahi 17

 Additive Cipher
• Also called a shift cipher and sometimes a Caesar cipher.

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 Additive Cipher
Example:
• Use the additive cipher with key = 15 to encrypt the message “hello”.
• K=15
• P=hello
• C=?

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 Additive Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the additive cipher with key = 15 to encrypt the message “hello”.
• K=15
• P=hello

• C=WTAAD

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 Additive Cipher
Example:
• Use the additive cipher with key = 15 to decrypt the message
“WTAAD”.
• K=15
• C=WTAAD
• P=?

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 Additive Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the additive cipher with key = 15 to decrypt the message
“WTAAD”.
• K=15
• C=WTAAD

• P=hello

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 Additive Cipher
Cryptanalysis
• Vulnerable to ciphertext-only attacks using brute-force attacks.
• The key domain is very small; there are only 26 keys.
Example:
• Eve has intercepted the ciphertext “UVACLYFZLJBYL”. Show how
she can use a brute-force attack to break the cipher.
• C= UVACLYFZLJBYL
• K=?
• P=?

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 Additive Cipher
Cryptanalysis
Example: (Solution)
• Eve has intercepted the ciphertext “UVACLYFZLJBYL”. Show how
she can use a brute-force attack to break the cipher.
• C= UVACLYFZLJBYL
• K=?
• P=?
• P = (C − k) mod 26

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 Multiplicative Ciphers

• The encryption specifies multiplication of the plaintext by the key.

• The decryption specifies division of the ciphertext by the key.

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 Multiplicative Ciphers
Example:
• Use a multiplicative cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with a key of 7.
• K=7
• P=hello
• C=?

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 Multiplicative Ciphers
Example: (Solution)
• Use a multiplicative cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with a key of 7.
• K=7
• P=hello

• C=XCZZU

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 Affine Cipher
• Combination between the additive and multiplicative ciphers.
• Uses a pair of keys.

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 Affine Cipher
Example:
• Use an affine cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with the key (7, 2).
• K=7,2
• P=hello
• C=?

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 Affine Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the affine cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with the key (7, 2).
• K=7,2
• P=hello

• C=ZEBBW

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 Polyalphabetic Ciphers
• The relationship between a character in the plaintext to a character in
the ciphertext is one-to-many.
• The cipher is monoalphabetic because both L’s are encrypted as O’s.

• The cipher is polyalphabetic because each L is encrypted by a

different character.

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 Playfair Cipher
• The secret key in this cipher is made of 25 alphabet letters.
• Arranged in a 5*5 matrix.
• Letters I and J are considered the same when encrypting.
• Repeating plaintext letters that are in the same pair should be
separated with a filler letter x.
• If two plaintext letters that fall in the same row of the matrix are
each replaced by the letter to the right.
• If two plaintext letters that fall in the same column are each replaced
by the letter beneath.

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 Playfair Cipher
Example:
• Use the playfair cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with the key
“monarchy”.
• K=monarchy
• P=hello
• C=?

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 Playfair Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the playfair cipher to encrypt the message “hello” with the key
“monarchy”.
• K=monarchy
• P=hello

• hecf
• lxsu
• lopm

• C=cfsupm

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 Playfair Cipher
Example:
• Use the playfair cipher to encrypt the message “saudi” with the key
“College of computer”.
• K= Collegeofcomputer
• P= saudi
• C=?

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 Playfair Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the playfair cipher to encrypt the message “saudi” with the key
“College of computer”.
• K= Collegeofcomputer
• P= saudi

• sakh
• uddq
• ixnv

• C=khdqnv

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 Playfair Cipher
Cryptanalysis
• Brute-force attack on a Playfair cipher is very difficult.
• The size of the key domain is 25!
• (factorial 25=15,511,210,043,330,985,984,000,000).
• Cryptanalyst can use a ciphertext-only attack (Statistical Attack) based
on the digram frequency test to find the key.
• Digram
• Two-letter combination
• Most common is th

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 Vigenere Cipher
• Uses a different strategy to create the key stream.
• The key stream is a repetition of an initial secret key stream of length n.
Example:
• Use the Vigenere cipher to encrypt the message “She is listening” with
the key “PASCAL”.
• K= PASCAL
• P= Sheislistening
• C=?

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 Vigenere Cipher
Example: (Solution)
• Use the Vigenere cipher to encrypt the message “She is listening” with
the key “PASCAL”.
• K= PASCAL
• P= Sheislistening

• C=HHWKSWXSLGNTCG
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 One-Time Pad
• The key has the same length as the plaintext.
• Key is chosen completely in random.
• Key is used to encrypt and decrypt a single message and then is discarded.
• Each new message requires a new key of the same length as the new message.
• The one-time pad offers complete security but has difficulties:
• Long messages (1-2 pages) must use long keys.
• Making large number of random keys.

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 Transposition Ciphers
• Does not substitute one symbol for another.
• It changes the location of the symbols.
• Transposition cipher include:
• Keyless Transposition Ciphers
• Keyed Transposition Ciphers

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
There are two methods for it:
• In the first method, the text is written into a table column by column
and then transmitted row by row,
• Ex. Rail fence cipher.
• In the second method, the text is written into the table row by row
and then transmitted column by column.

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 1 (Rail fence)
• The plaintext is arranged in two lines as a zigzag pattern (which
means column by column)
• The ciphertext is created reading the pattern row by row.
Example:
• Use the Rail fence cipher to encrypt the message “Meet me at the
park” with depth 2.
• P= Meetmeatthepark
• C=?

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 1 (Rail fence)
Example: (Solution)
• Use the Rail fence cipher to encrypt the message “Meet me at the
park” with depth 2.
• P= Meetmeatthepark

• C=MEMATEAKETETHPR

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 1 (Rail fence)
Example:
• Use the Rail fence cipher to encrypt the message “Meet me at the
park” with depth 3.
• P= Meetmeatthepark
• C=?

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 1 (Rail fence)
Example: (Solution)
• Use the Rail fence cipher to encrypt the message “Meet me at the
park” with depth 3.
• P= Meetmeatthepark

• C=MTAHAEMTEREETPK

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 2
• Both sender and receiver agree on the number of columns.
• The plaintext is arranged row by row.
• The ciphertext is created reading the pattern column by column.
Example:
• Use the Keyless Transposition cipher to encrypt the message “Meet
me at the park” with depth 4.
• P= Meetmeatthepark
• C=?

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Keyless Transposition Ciphers
Method 2
Example: (Solution)
• Use the Keyless Transposition cipher to encrypt the message “Meet
me at the park” with depth 4.
• P= Meetmeatthepark

• C=MMTAEEHREAEKTTP

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 Keyed Transposition Ciphers
Example:
• Use the Keyed Transposition cipher to encrypt the message “Enemy
attacks tonight” using key 31452.
• K= 31452
• P= Enemyattackstonight
• C=?

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 Keyed Transposition Ciphers
Example: (Solution)
• Use the Keyed Transposition cipher to encrypt the message “Enemy
attacks tonight” using key 31452.
• K= 31452
• P= Enemyattackstonight

• Row C=NYEEMTCATASNKTOGZIHT
• Column C=NTSGYCNZEAKIETTHMAOT
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 Transposition Ciphers
Cryptanalysis
Transposition ciphers are vulnerable to several kinds of ciphertext-only
attacks:
• Statistical Attack
• Using single-letter frequency analysis.
• Brute-Force Attack
• By guessing the number of columns.
• Pattern Attack
• keyed transposition ciphertext has some repeated patterns.

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 Stream and Block Ciphers
Symmetric ciphers are divided into two categories:
• Stream ciphers
• encryption and decryption are done character by character.
• It has a plaintext stream, a ciphertext stream, and a key stream.

• Block ciphers
• group of plaintext symbols of size n are encrypted together creating a
group of ciphertext of the same size.
• single key is used to encrypt the whole block.

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End of Chapter

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