A Review on Biological Inspired Computation in Cryptology

Cryptology is a field that concerned with cryptography and cryptanalysis. Cryptography, which is a key technology in providing a secure transmission of information, is a study of designing strong cryptographic algorithms, while cryptanalysis is a study of breaking the cipher. Recently biological approaches provide inspiration in solving problems from various fields. This paper reviews major works in the application of biological inspired computational (BIC) paradigm in cryptology. The paper focuses on three BIC approaches, namely, genetic algorithm (GA), artificial neural network (ANN) and artificial immune system (AIS). The findings show that the research on applications of biological approaches in cryptology is minimal as compared to other fields. To date only ANN and GA have been used in cryptanalysis and design of cryptographic primitives and protocols. Based on similarities that AIS has with ANN and GA, this paper provides insights for potential application of AIS in cryptology for further research

A cryptanalytic attack of simplified-AES using ant colony optimization

Ant colony Optimization is a nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithm that gained a great interest in resolution of combinatorial and numerical optimization problems in many science and engineering domains. The aim of this work was to investigate the use of Ant Colony Optimization in cryptanalysis of Simplified Advanced Encryption Standard (S-AES), using a known plaintext attack. We have defined the essential components of our algorithm such as heuristic value, fitness function and the strategy to update pheromone trails. It is shown from the experimental results that our proposed algorithm allow us to break S-AES cryptosystem after exploring a minimum search space when compared with others techniques and requiring only two plaintext-ciphertext pairs

Heuristic Search Cryptanalysis of the Zodiac 340 Cipher

The Zodiac 340 cipher is one of the most famous unsolved ciphers of all time. It was allegedly written by “the Zodiac”, whose identity remains unknown to date. The Zodiac was a serial killer who killed a number of people in and around the San Francisco Bay area during the 1960s. He is confirmed to have seven victims, two of whom survived [1], although in taunting letters to the news media he claims to have killed 37 people. During this time, an encrypted message known as the Zodiac 408 cipher was mailed to 3 different newspapers in the San Francisco bay area. This was a homophonic cipher and was successfully decoded. Within a few days he sent out another cipher that was 340 characters long [4]. This cipher, which is known as the Zodiac 340 cipher, is unsolved to date. Many cryptologists have tried to crack this cipher but with no success. In this project, we implemented a novel genetic algorithm in an attempt to crack the Zodiac 340 cipher. We have attacked the cipher as a homophonic cipher where each cipher symbol is mapped to only a single English letter, but each English letter can be mapped to multiple cipher symbols. In the genetic algorithm, we implemented two variants of crossover: simple and intelligent. The simple crossover looks for commonly occurring substrings, without looking for actual English words in a putative decrypt. The intelligent crossover counts the number of actual English words that can be found in a putative decrypt when evaluating each solution. We implemented a dictionary lookup for quickly identifying English words for the intelligent crossover. The genetic algorithm using a combination of simple and intelligent crossovers was able to identify many English words in various putative decrypts but no solution was found

Dynamic S-BOX using Chaotic Map for VPN Data Security

A dynamic SBox using a chaotic map is a cryptography technique that changes the SBox during encryption based on iterations of a chaotic map, adding an extra layer of confusion and security to symmetric encryption algorithms like AES. The chaotic map introduces unpredictability, non-linearity, and key dependency, enhancing the overall security of the encryption process. The existing work on dynamic SBox using chaotic maps lacks standardized guidelines and extensive security analysis, leaving potential vulnerabilities and performance concerns unaddressed. Key management and the sensitivity of chaotic maps to initial conditions are challenges that need careful consideration. The main objective of using a dynamic SBox with a chaotic map in cryptography systems is to enhance the security and robustness of symmetric encryption algorithms. The method of dynamic SBox using a chaotic map involves initializing the SBox, selecting a chaotic map, iterating the map to generate chaotic values, and updating the SBox based on these values during the encryption process to enhance security and resist cryptanalytic attacks. This article proposes a novel chaotic map that can be utilized to create a fresh, lively SBox. The performance assessment of the suggested S resilience Box against various attacks involves metrics such as nonlinearity (NL), strict avalanche criterion (SAC), bit independence criterion (BIC), linear approximation probability (LP), and differential approximation probability (DP). These metrics help gauge the Box ability to handle and respond to different attack scenarios. Assess the cryptography strength of the proposed S-Box for usage in practical security applications, it is compared to other recently developed SBoxes. The comparative research shows that the suggested SBox has the potential to be an important advancement in the field of data security.Comment: 11 Page

Designing substitution boxes based on chaotic map and globalized firefly algorithm

Cipher strength mainly depends on the robust structure and a well-designed interaction of the components in its framework. A significant component of a cipher system, which has a significant influence on the strength of the cipher system, is the substitution box or S-box. An S-box is a vital and most essential component of the cipher system due to its direct involvement in providing the system with resistance against certain known and potential cryptanalytic attacks. Hence, research in this area has increased since the late 1980s, but there are still several issues in the design and analysis of the S-boxes for cryptography purposes. Therefore, it is not surprising that the design of suitable S-boxes attracts a lot of attention in the cryptography community. Nonlinearity, bijectivity, strict avalanche criteria, bit independence criteria, differential probability, and linear probability are the major required cryptographic characteristics associated with a strong S-box. Different cryptographic systems requiring certain levels of these security properties. Being that S- boxes can exhibit a certain combination of cryptographic properties at differing rates, the design of a cryptographically strong S-box often requires the establishment of a trade-off between these properties when optimizing the property values. To date, many S-boxes designs have been proposed in the literature, researchers have advocated the adoption of metaheuristic based S-boxes design. Although helpful, no single metaheuristic claim dominance over their other countermeasure. For this reason, the research for a new metaheuristic based S-boxes generation is still a useful endeavour. This thesis aim to provide a new design for 8 × 8 S-boxes based on firefly algorithm (FA) optimization. The FA is a newly developed metaheuristic algorithm inspired by fireflies and their flash lighting process. In this context, the proposed algorithm utilizes a new design for retrieving strong S- boxes based on standard firefly algorithm (SFA). Three variations of FA have been proposed with an aim of improving the generated S-boxes based on the SFA. The first variation of FA is called chaotic firefly algorithm (CFA), which was initialized using discrete chaotic map to enhance the algorithm to start the search from good positions. The second variation is called globalized firefly algorithm (GFA), which employs random movement based on the best firefly using chaotic maps. If a firefly is brighter than its other counterparts, it will not conduct any search. The third variation is called globalized firefly algorithm with chaos (CGFA), which was designed as a combination of CFA initialization and GFA. The obtained result was compared with a previous S-boxes based on optimization algorithms. Overall, the experimental outcome and analysis of the generated S-boxes based on nonlinearity, bit independence criteria, strict avalanche criteria, and differential probability indicate that the proposed method has satisfied most of the required criteria for a robust S-box without compromising any of the required measure of a secure S-box

SURVEY : CRYPTOGRAPHY OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHMS

With the advent of e-commerce, it has become extremely essential to tackle the sensitive issues of affording data security, especially in the ever-blooming open network environment of the modern era. The encrypting technologies of the time-honored cryptography are generally employed to shelter data safety extensively. The term ‘cryptography’ refers to the process of safeguarding the secret data against access by unscrupulous persons in scenarios where it is humanly impossible to furnish physical protection. It deals with the methods which convert the data between intelligible and unintelligible forms by encryption/decryption functions with the management of key(s). Nowadays cryptographic key management issues that arise due to the distributed nature of IT resources, as well the distributed nature of their control. Recently these issues are solved by optimization algorithms utilized in the cryptographic algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to give a survey of optimal cryptographic keys that can be developed with the help of optimization algorithms, and to address their merits to the real-worldscenarios.AbstractWith the advent of e-commerce, it has become extremely essential to tackle the sensitive issues of affording data security, especially in the ever-blooming open network environment of the modern era. The encrypting technologies of the time-honored cryptography are generally employed to shelter data safety extensively. The term ‘cryptography’ refers to the process of safeguarding the secret data against access by unscrupulous persons in scenarios where it is humanly impossible to furnish physical protection. It deals with the methods which convert the data between intelligible and unintelligible forms by encryption/decryption functions with the management of key(s). Nowadays cryptographic key management issues that arise due to the distributed nature of IT resources, as well the distributed nature of their control. Recently these issues are solved by optimization algorithms utilized in the cryptographic algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to give a survey of optimal cryptographic keys that can be developed with the help of optimization algorithms, and to address their merits to the real-worldscenarios. Keywords:Cryptography; Encryption; Decryption; Key Management; Optimization algorithm

Breaking Data Encryption Standard with a Reduced Number of Rounds Using Metaheuristics Differential Cryptanalysis

This article presents the author’s own metaheuristic cryptanalytic attack based on the use of differential cryptanalysis (DC) methods and memetic algorithms (MA) that improve the local search process through simulated annealing (SA). The suggested attack will be verified on a set of ciphertexts generated with the well-known DES (data encryption standard) reduced to six rounds. The aim of the attack is to guess the last encryption subkey, for each of the two characteristics Ω. Knowing the last subkey, it is possible to recreate the complete encryption key and thus decrypt the cryptogram. The suggested approach makes it possible to automatically reject solutions (keys) that represent the worst fitness function, owing to which we are able to significantly reduce the attack search space. The memetic algorithm (MASA) created in such a way will be compared with other metaheuristic techniques suggested in literature, in particular, with the genetic algorithm (NGA) and the classical differential cryptanalysis attack, in terms of consumption of memory and time needed to guess the key. The article also investigated the entropy of MASA and NGA attacks

Modification of Some Solution Techniques of Combinatorial Optimization Problems to Analyze the Transposition Cipher

In this paper we attempt to use a new direction in cryptanalysis of classical crypto systems. The new direction represented by considering some of classical crypto systems, like transposition cipher problem (TCP), as a combinatorial optimization problem (COP), then using the known solving methods of COP, with some modification, to cryptanalysis the TCP. In this work we investigate to use Branch and Bound (BAB) and one of swarm algorithms as a local search method. The main aim of the research presented in this paper is to investigate the use of some optimization methods in the fields of cryptanalysis and cryptographic function generation. These techniques were found to provide a successful method of automated cryptanalysis of a variety of the classical ciphers. Keywords: cryptography, cryptanalysis, Classical Ciphers, Transposition Cipher, Branch and Bound, Swarm Intelligence, Bees Algorithm