Cryptography Methods — An Overview
By: Viraj Shah
Tags: Cryptography

Viraj Shah, Fourth Year B. Tech Integrated, Computer engineering, NMIMS’s MPSTME

What is Cryptography

In the 21st century data is one of the most valuable resources that is available easily, Information Security deals with the protection of this data. Cryptography is the domain in information security that deals with the encryption and decryption of data to ensure secrecy and authenticity of the data. Data need to be protected at all times that is when the data is moving from one end to other, or when data is being stored. Cryptography ensures that data is only accessed by its rightful owner and the data has not been manipulated or tampered with in transmission.

Goals of Cryptography

· Authentication: It refer to the process of proving the identity of the person trying to access some data and to assure that he/she has the permission to access this data.

· Confidentiality: It is one of the most important goal of cryptography. It makes sure that no one but the person with the right decipher key can decode the message.

· Data Integrity: Data integrity refers to maintaining the state of the data while transit. It make sure the data which is received is not manipulated or tampered with while it had been moving over the web.

· Non-Repudiation: It is mechanism used to prove that the sender really sent this message, and the message was received by the specified party, so the recipient cannot claim that the message was not sent

· Access Control: Ensure that only the authorized parties are able to access the transmitted message.

Terms related to Cryptography

1. Plain Text: The main text that has to be sent from the owner of the message to the recipient is called the plain text. This plain text acts as the input for the encryption algorithms.

2. Cipher Text: Cipher text is the text that is sent from the sender to the receiver and it is encrypted form. It is not understandable to us directly and need to be decrypted to get the plain text

3. Encryption: The conversion of plain text to cipher text using an encryption algorithm is called encryption.

4. Decryption: The conversion of cipher text back to plain text using the correct decryption algorithm is called decryption.

5. Keys: The secret key is also input to the encryption algorithm. The total strength of the procedure depends only on secret key. For same algorithm, same plaintext two different secret key values will produce two different ciphertext.

Types of Cryptography

1. Symmetric Cryptography

This is a type of cryptography where there is a same key that is used for Encryption and decryption. The key is distributed before the message are transmitted since the key plays a very important role. Examples of symmetric cryptography include DES, 3DES, BLOWFISH and AES method.

2. Asymmetric Cryptography

In this type of encryption there are different keys that are used for the encryption and decryption of the plain text. There are two different keys that are generated. One is the private key which is only kept by the sender and used to encrypt the message. The other key known as the public key is distributed and is used as a method for decryption of the message. Examples of asymmetric cryptography include RSA method.

Light Cryptography, A new trend

With the increase of technology and the increase of smaller hand held devices the number of resources available has reduced. With this limited resource there is still a need for protection of data which has lead to the research in lightweight cryptography. The goal of light-weight cryptography (LWC) is to enable a various range of applications, like vehicle security systems, smart meters, wireless patient, the Internet of Things (IoT), an Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), and monitoring systems, the aforementioned is exacerbated by actuality that these devices could typically characterize direct interaction with the physical world, by corresponding actuators, potentially compromising users security in case of misuse.

Closure

Cryptography has become one of the most important method to protect data in this century where data has become the most valuable resource that is available readily. Cryptography guarantees that the integrity of the data is maintained at all forms that is while transfer and storage.

References

· A survey on Conventional Encryption Algorithms of Cryptography, paper by Ramesh Yegireddi, R Kiran Kumar

· A Survey on Lightweight-Cryptography Status and Future Challenges, paper by Sattar B.Sadkhan, Akbal O. Salman

· Survey Paper: Cryptography The art of hiding Information, paper by Manoj Kumar Pandey, Mrs. Deepty Dubey