Algorithms and Tools for Securing and Protecting Academic Data in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

This paper deals with the implementation of algorithms and tools for the security of academic data protection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It consists principally in implementing two algorithms and two distinct tools to secure data and in this particular case, academic data of higher and university education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The design of algorithms meets the approach that any researcher in data encryption must use during the development of a computer system. Briefly, these algorithms are steps to follow to encrypt information in any programming language. These algorithms are based on symmetric and asymmetric encryption, the first one uses Christopher Hill’s algorithm, which uses texts in the form of matrices before they are encrypted and RSA as one of the asymmetric algorithms, it uses the prime numbers that we have encoded on more than 512 bits. As for tools, we have developed them in php which is only a programming language taken as an example because it is impossible to use all of them. The tools implemented are based on the algorithms of Caesar, Christopher Hill, and RSA showing how the encryption operations are carried out thanks to graphical interfaces. They are only tools for pedagogical reasons to help students and other researchers learn how to use developed algorithms. We have not developed them for pleasure but rather to be used in any information system, which would prevent and limit unauthorized access to computer systems. They will not be used only for the management of academic fees but for any other information system, which explains and shows the complexity of the tools developed. We have not been able to solve the problems of versions for the developed prototype, because if there is a new version later some functions may be obsolete, which would constitute the limitation of these tools. This work targets primarily the Ministry of Higher Education and Universities, which will make these results its own and implement them in order to solve the problem of intrusions, and unauthorized access to developers and researchers who will use tools already made instead of thinking about their development. We are trying to demonstrate the steps and the methodology that allowed us to reach our results, in the following lines.