DES algorithm security fortification using Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Abstract

The Data Encryption Standard (DES) was a widespread symmetric key block cipher algorithm. It was the most popular used cryptographic scheme. DES's security was a highly contentious and controversial aspect until it became an insecure algorithm in 1999. In this paper, a modification that overcomes the security issue of the DES algorithm is introduced. The enhancement is depending on the art of the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). The ECC approach is also used to achieve the required key generation and distribution to establish a communication session. Our new ECC-based DES algorithm can be applied to any file format, in this paper it is employed to encrypt and decrypt an image file. Experimental results are carried out with detailed analyses, the results demonstrate that the proposed scheme possesses a very large key space to resist the brute-force attack and it is very immune to statistical attacks. The obtained results show that the ECC-based DES algorithm could be used as a highly secure algorithm.