Different Types of Cryptography Attacks

Cryptography involves hiding the information to be transmitted so that merely the telephone receiver is able to view it. This is done by encoding the information to be sent at the transmitter ’ sulfur end and decoding the information on the receiver ’ mho end .
The field of cryptanalysis is an old one and dates second to 2000 B.C. in Egypt. Let us have a brief spirit at the basic influence of cryptography before moving onto the different types of attacks :

1. The text that is to be transmitted which can be commonly read is known as ‘plaintext’.
2. This plaintext is converted to unreadable format by the process of encryption and it is then known as ‘Ciphertext’.
3. This ciphertext can now be transmitted over insecure channels confidently without the danger of snooping. Once it has been successfully transmitted, it has to be decrypted at the receiver’s end and the ‘plaintext’ is again recovered.
4. An algorithm is a complex mathematical formula that aids in encrypting the information along with the “key”.
5. The “key” is a long sequence of bits which is used to encrypt and decrypt the text.

This is the basic and fundamental concept behind cryptanalysis. There are two modes of encoding – symmetrical encoding and asymmetrical encoding .
In ‘ Symmetric encryption ’ algorithm, the same key which is used to encrypt is used to decrypt a message .
In ‘ Asymmetric encryption ’ algorithm, different keys are used to encrypt and decrypt a message .
cryptography ensures that the information that is sent safely and securely, preserves the concept of confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. Having seen, the basics of cryptography and the different types of encoding, let us following view the unlike types of attacks that are possible .
There are two types of attacks – ‘ passive attacks ’ and ‘ active attacks ’. Snooping on data, listen in is childlike examples of ‘ passive attacks ’. passive attacks are not vitamin a harmful as they do not cause any change or modification of data. ‘ active attacks ’ cause data to be altered, system files to be modified and are obviously a lot more harmful than ‘ passive attacks ’ .
These are some examples of ‘ active attacks ’ :

1. Bruteforce attacks

Brute-force attacks involve trying every possible quality combination to find the ‘ cardinal ’ to decrypt an code message. While brute-force attacks may take a smaller come of time for smaller keyspaces, it will take an incomputable measure of fourth dimension for larger keyspaces. hence it is airy to try brute-force attacks modern encoding systems .

2. Cipher-only attack

In the ‘ cipher-only ’ attack, the attacker knows the ciphertext of assorted messages which have been encrypted using the same encoding algorithm. The attacker ’ randomness challenge is to figure the ‘ cardinal ’ which can then be used to decrypt all messages .
The ‘ cipher-only ’ assail is probably one of the easiest attacks to commit since it is easy to capture the ciphertext ( by sniffing ) but unmanageable to implement since the cognition about the encoding process is limited .

3. Known-plaintext attack

In the ‘ known-plaintext ’ assail, the attacker knows some of the plaintext and the ciphertext. He then has to figure the ‘ key ’ by change by reversal engineer and he can decipher early messages which use the lapp ‘ key ’ and algorithm .
The ‘ known-plaintext ’ attack was effective against childlike ciphers such as the ‘ substitution cipher ’. It was democratic for breaking ciphers used during the second World War .

4. Chosen plaintext attack

The ‘ chosen-plaintext ’ attack is similar to the ‘ known-plaintext ’ attack, but here the attacker experiments by choosing his own plaintext ( say choosing a word such as ‘ cryptography ’ ) for a ‘ Vignere nothing ’ and with the generate ciphertext he can figure the ‘ key ’ .
once he figures the ‘ key ’ he can learn more about the solid encoding process and understand how the ‘ identify ’ is being used .
With this information, he can decrypt other messages.

5. Chosen ciphertext attack

In the ‘ choose ciphertext ’ attack, the attacker chooses a fortune of the decode ciphertext. He then compares the decode ciphertext with the plaintext and figures out the key .
This is relatively a harder type of attack and earlier versions of RSA were subject to these types of attacks .

6. Differential cryptanalysis

This was a popular type of attack against block algorithms such as DES in 1990. The primary coil target of this assail, as with early attacks, is finding the ‘ key ’ .
The attacker follows several messages of plaintext into their transform ciphertext. He observes the changes form plaintext to the ciphertext and deduces the key .

This is a type of ‘ chosen-plaintext ’ attack since the attacker chooses the plaintext to observe the transformation .

7. Linear cryptanalysis

The attacker carries out a “ known-plaintext ” attack against several messages which have been encrypted with the same key. This gives the attacker insight into the probability of a particular identify. If more messages are attacked, there is a higher hypothesis of finding the especial “ key ” .

8. Side channel attacks

apart from precisely relying on mathematical ways to break into systems, attackers may use other techniques such as observing office consumption, radiation emissions and time for data process. With this datum, the attacker works in a revoke manner to figure the ‘ keys ’ to an algorithm fair by observing the come of heat released in an attack .
RSA keys in 1995 were uncovered using this type of attack .

9. Replay attacks

In a ‘ replay attack ’, the attacker captures some data ( as an exemplar, authentication information ) and re-submits it back to the receiver. This dupes the receiver and they give the attacker unauthorized entree .
Timestamps are one of the significant countermeasures to handle ‘ replay attacks ’ .
This post outlined the basic concepts of cryptography and some of the popular cryptography attacks .