Attacking the Knapsack Public-key Cryptosystem

Abstract

Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem is a public-key cryptosystem, which means, two keys are used, a public key for the encryption and a private key for the decryption. This cryptosystem is not secure against the cryptosystem attacks, such as LLL Algorithm. In this paper, we introduce a new study to attack the knapsack problem. This study is based on discussing certain facts regarding the public key to extract the multiplier. Also, based on some facts we can find the modulus that is used in the cryptosystem. Therefore, the experimental outcome shows that this method is easier and faster to attack the knapsack cryptosystem.