Cryptanalysis Unveiled: Overview & Attack Types

jaro education
24, August 2023
3:00 pm

Cryptanalysis is a field of study and practice that involves analysing and decrypting ciphers, codes, and encrypted text without access to the correct key. Its primary objective is to gain access to the plain text content of a communication, even in the absence of the decryption key. Cryptanalysis experts dedicate their efforts to comprehending the inner workings of ciphers, cryptosystems, and ciphertext to understand their mechanisms. With this understanding, they strive to develop techniques to weaken or defeat them.

It is worth noting that cryptographers develop encryption codes used in cybersecurity, while cryptanalysts focus on breaking those encryption codes. These two roles represent opposing sides within cybersecurity, engaged in a perpetual conflict where each side endeavours to outwit the other. This ongoing competition serves as a driving force for innovation within cybersecurity. The article will give you a complete idea about what is cryptanalysis, how this concept is continuously updating.

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Use of Cryptanalysis

It is not surprising that hackers utilise cryptanalysis as part of their activities. Potential hackers employ cryptanalysis to identify cryptosystem vulnerabilities, opting for this approach instead of brute force attacks. Governments also employ cryptanalysis to decrypt the encrypted messages of other nations. Furthermore, companies specialising in cybersecurity products and services use cryptanalysis to assess the effectiveness of their security features. Even academia engages in cryptanalysis, with researchers and scholars actively searching for cryptographic algorithms and protocol weaknesses.

It is important to note that black-hat hackers, who engage in malicious cyber activities, and white-hat hackers, who conduct authorised penetration testing, use cryptanalysis. Black-hat hackers use it to carry out cybercrimes, while white-hat hackers employ it under the guidance of organisations that hire them to test their security measures.

Various Types of Cryptanalytic Attacks

The types of cryptanalytic attacks are as follows:

Man-In-The-Middle Attack

In this type of cyberattack, the attacker captures communication between two parties across a secure channel. The attacker can then listen in on, change, or tamper with the conversation between the participants

Chosen-Plaintext Analysis

The intruder selects particular plaintexts and obtains the appropriate ciphertexts in this attack. Studying these pairs and determining the encryption key is the goal. Despite being simple to implement, it occasionally has a low success rate.

Adaptive Chosen-Plaintext Analysis

It is similar to CPA but with an additional step. After obtaining ciphertexts for some plaintexts, the attacker requests more ciphertexts for additional plaintexts. This attack allows the attacker to adapt and refine their analysis based on the obtained information.

Birthday Attack

This attack exploits the probability of collisions in a hash function by finding two or more inputs that produce the same hash value.