Topic-Cryptography and Data Security

Navdeep Singh
Assistant Professor,
Khalsa College, Amritsar.

Abstract

Cryptography as a branch of Mathematics is a tool to encrypt and decrypt the data. This paper endeavors
to explore various aspects of cryptography and bring out the inter-linkage between cryptography and data
security. Secure communication and protection against the data breach is utmost important to any Nation
and laymen. Our daily life depends on functioning of various fields like banking, social media etc. which
is connected to data encryption and decryption. We can understand the concern for Data Security through
recent happenings like—banking data breach, hacking, ransom ware attacks, Aadhaar card issue, crypto
currency and related block chain technology etc. The paper is based on usage of secondary sources like
various published books, journals, newspaper reports and articles etc. This paper puts emphasis on
different Algorithms and techniques used under cryptography for Data Security in the past and present
and various issues arising out of concern for Data Security.

Introduction

Cryptography is Mathematical technology that scrambles and hides information for the safeguard of
privacy. For over five millennium, cryptography has been used for secret communication by military
generals, emperors and by various countries. In the initial stage of cryptography Egyptian used
logographs and different characters to hide information from those not in the know. For military and
security purpose Julius Caesar was the first to use cryptography and his encryption technique is known as
Caesar’s Cipher. During the world war II Germans used Enigma machines which were based on the
cryptography to send secret messages to their air force and navy. A British Mathematician Alan Turing
and his fellow code breakers break German’s enigma codes and helped to shorten the war by several
years. During the late 70’s there was dispute over the privacy and laymen were unaware of that. The
governments were having monopolies over the data encryption. Governments were hiding information by
encryption from its citizens but people’s information was fully exposed to the governments. It is the role
of governments to uphold privacy of individual at par security of nation so that civil rights should not be
violated.

Encryption and Decryption

Data which can be understood without using any special and fundamental mathematical techniques is
Plain text. The technique to conceal plain text so that it becomes unidentified to unknown is called
Encryption. The Unrecognizable plain text after encryption is termed as Cipher text. The process of
obtaining original data or information from Cipher text is Decryption.
Plain Text Encryption Cipher Text Decryption Plain Text

Conventional Cryptography

Caesar’s Cipher

In this technique each English alphabet is shifted to next third alphabet to it and this chain is
repeated in all 26 alphabets. Similarly for decryption each alphabet is shifted three steps
backward to obtain plain text from the cipher text. The following two diagrams detailing about
the encryption and decryption of Caesar’s cipher text.

Caeser’s encryption Caeser’s decryption

Symmetric -Key Cryptography

Symmetric key Algorithms use one key for both encryption and decryption and popular as secret-key and
private-key cryptography. The fig. 1 elaborates the typical symmetric-key cryptosystem in which two
persons Sallu and Kat are communicating with one another over the internet. If they share their messages
through insecure channel there is possibility of modification of content or their privacy at risk. This risk
can be eradicated when they communicate with symmetric key cryptography by changing Plain Text to
Cipher Text. Sallu will encrypt his message X before sending it across the insecure channel then Kat will
receive message as Y. She will understand the message if, she knows the key. So third party cannot
access the information and will be unable to modify the Data. Symmetric key encryption can be
extremely secure that it can be unbreakable. One of the widely-used symmetric key encryption system is
U.S. originated Advanced Encryption Standard(AES) which would take about a billion years for a ten
petaflop computer system to break the key

A B Y X
Sallu Encrypted Decrypted Kat
Insecure
Text channel Text

Key Key Secure Channel

Key
Generator

Fig. 1

Mathematical notations describing Encryption and Decryption:

Let A is the plain text,

Assume a set P = { x1, x2, x3,……………. Xp }, here P set is denoting all the possible inputs for the plain text

B is the Cipher text

Let set C = { y1 , y2 , y3 , ………………………….. yp } ,Which representing all possible inputs for cipher text.

K = { k1 , k2 , k3 , ……………………………….. kn } is required key set.

Define encryption function 𝑒𝑘𝑖 such that

𝑒𝑘𝑖 (𝐴) = B

Similarly we have decryption function

𝑑𝑘𝑖 (B) = A

The functions used in above algorithm are inverse of each other i.e.

𝑑𝑘𝑖 (𝑒𝑘𝑖 (𝑖)) = 𝑒𝑘𝑖 (𝑑𝑘𝑖 (𝑖)) = i

The Modulo Operator

Given two positive numbers, a and n, a modulo n is remainder of the Euclidean division of a by n. For
e.g. Let a = 17 and n = 4. Therefore a mod n is calculated as:

a ≡ r mod n

17 ≡ 1 mod 4

A simple mathematical algorithm for Caesar’s cipher can be obtained with the help of modulo operator as
below:

Consider in the English language each alphabet is given with a numerical value as

A ↔ 1, B↔2, ……………. , Z ↔26

Encrypt the plain text

X = CONFERENCE

X = 3, 15, 14, 6, 5, 18, 5, 14, 3, 5

Take Value k = 3 of shift cipher

X0 =3 → e3 (3) = 3+3 mod 26 = 6 mod 26 = F

X1 = 15→ e3 (15) = 15+3 mod 26 = 18 mod 26 = R

X2 = 14→ e3 (14) = 14+3 mod 26 = 17 mod 26 = Q

X3 = 6 → e3 (6) =6+3 mod 26 = 9 mod 26 = I

X4 = 5→ e3 (5) = 5+3 mod 26 = 8 mod 26 = H

X5 = 18 → e3 (18) = 18+3 mod 26 = 21 mod 26 = U

X6 = 5→ e3 (5) = 5+3 mod 26 = 8 mod 26 = H

X7 = 14→e3 (14) = 14+3 mod 26 = 17 mod 26 = Q

X8 = 3 → e3 (3) = 3+3 mod 26 = 6 mod 26 = F

X9 = 5 → e3 (5) = 5+3 mod 26 = 8 mod 26 = H

Here word CONFERENCE is encrypted to FRQIHUHQFH

Public Key Cryptography

The problem of key distribution is solved by public key cryptography, the concept of which was
introduced by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1975. But evidences are traced that British Secret
Service used it before Diffie and Hellman invented it.
It is well known as Asymmetric key cryptography as pair of two different keys is used for encryption and
decryption. Public key used to encrypt the data published worldwide and private key which is required to
decrypt.

Public key Private key

Plain Text Encryption Cipher Text Decryption Plain Text

Cryptography and Data Security in the Modern World

DES

Functioning of various fields like banking, social media etc. is linked with internet and for security of all
such fields, Cryptography plays a vital role. In the year 1970 American government standardized their
encryption with Data Encryption Standard (DES). Because of the less complexity level of the DES it is
widely used in SIM Card, Data cards and various network devices like MODEMS, Routers, Set top Boxes
etc.

RSA

The three MIT Mathematician- Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman invented a public key
cryptosystem in 1977 and named it as RSA after themselves. To launch their algorithm in the market they
get financial help from some businessmen and get rights from MIT to commercialize it, U.S. patent
4405829 “ Cryptographic Communications System and Method”. By the year 1996 it was used
everywhere to protect all the type of information over the internet which covered e-mails and other
important transfers.

Recent happenings related to Data Security

Ransom ware Attacks: Ransom ware is a form of malicious software that locks up the files on your
computer with the help of encryption, and demands money to get your files in decrypted manner. When
your system gets infected with it a pop is appeared on the screen as shown in the picture.

India was the one of the worst effected country as per reports; official figures declared 45000 computers
were affected with it in India. One of the main reasons of its spread in India is the usage of old version of
Microsoft windows.

WhatsApp end to end Encryption with the help of Cryptography

WhatsApp’s end to end encryption ensures that only you and the person you are communicating with can
see what is sent and not even WhatsApp can see your message. The following steps describe the end to
end encryption working of WhatsApp:

1. When the user opens the WhatsApp, two keys (public& private) are generated automatically and
encryption process takes place on phone itself.
2. The private key must remain with the user whereas the public key is transferred to the receiver
via the centralized WhatsApp server.
3. The public key encrypts the sender’s message on the phone even before it reaches the centralized
server.
4. The server is only used to transmit the encrypted message and message can only be unlocked by
the private key of the receiver. Any third party cannot recognize the original contest or intercept
the message.
5. Due to data encryption message is secure from the hackers attack.

Conclusion
Data security is extremely important in present scenario as almost everything is directly or
indirectly connected with internet. Due to recent data breaches events, it is important to scrutinize
our network infrastructures and make them more secure to avoid major attacks of same kind. In
his latest speech P.C. Haldar, former director of Intelligence Bureau said “The next 9/11 likely to
happen in cyberspace is predicted to be far more disruptive than 9/11 attacks of 2001 in the USA,
and it will happen because of lack of cyber hygiene and outdated systems. In this paper we have
studied various cryptography techniques. We can make suitable combinations of cryptography
techniques with network protocols to optimize data security.

References
1. PGP Corporation www.pgp.com
2. Matt Curtin: Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption standard
3. The Hindu, Article: WannaCry impact on India under reported Nov,17,2017
4. Adam J. Elbirt:Understanding and Applying Cryptography and data Security