Differential Cryptanalysis of the Data Encryption Standard

DES, the Data Encryption Standard, is one of several cryptographic standards. The authors of this text detail their cryptanalytic "attack" upon DES and several other systems, using creative and novel tactics to demonstrate how they broke DES up into 16 rounds of coding. The methodology used offers valuable insights to cryptographers and cryptanalysts alike in creating new encryption standards, strengthening current ones, and exploring new ways to test important data protection schemes. This book introduces a new cryptographic method, called differential cryptanalysis, which can be applied to analyze cryptosystems. It describes the cryptanalysis of DES, deals with the influence of its building blocks on security, and analyzes modified variants. The differential cryptanalysis of "Feal" and several other cryptosystems is also described. This method can also be used to cryptanalyze hash functions, as is exemplified by the cryptanalysis of "Snefru". DES, the Data Encryption Standard, is the best known and most widely used civilian cryptosystem. It was developed by IBM and adopted as a US national standard in the mid 1970`s, and had resisted all attacks in the last 15 years. This book presents the first successful attack which can break the full 16 round DES faster than via exhaustive search. It describes in full detail, the novel technique of Differential Cryptanalysis, and demonstrates its applicability to a wide variety of cryptosystems and hash functions, including FEAL, Khafre, REDOC-II, LOKI, Lucifer, Snefru, N-Hash, and many modified versions of DES. The methodology used offers valuable insights to anyone interested in data security and cryptography, and points out the intricacies of developing, evaluating, testing, and implementing such schemes. This book was written by two of the field`s leading researchers, and describes state-of-the-art research in a clear and completely contained manner. This monograph introduces a new cryptographic method, known as differential cryptanalysis, which can be applied to analyze many cryptosystems. The authors explain how to design, test, strengthen and break encryption systems.