Cryptographic Techniques Research Articles

Blockchain-Based Electronic Voting System: Significance and Requirements

In a democratic regime, voting is crucial to making collective decisions. Unfortunately, although this activity has great significance and value, little effort has been made to improve the way we vote. Paper ballots are still the most used method, although this method is relatively simple, brings many inconveniences, and represents a contradiction to the modern world and its advances. This paper mostly focuses on a review study of blockchain-based voting systems. It aims at identifying the strategies and the guidelines as well as provides a comprehensive end-to-end electronic voting system based on blockchain, with the help of cryptographic techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs to improve privacy. The novelty of this paper is that we tackle the limitations of electronic voting systems found in the literature, including cost, identity management, and scalability problems. Our purpose is to provide key elements for organizations on how to design their proper electronic voting system based on blockchain technology.

Evaluating GPT-4’s proficiency in addressing cryptography examinations

In the rapidly advancing domain of artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, powered by the GPT-4 model, has emerged as a state-of-the-art interactive agent, exhibiting substantial capabilities across various domains. This paper aims to assess the efficacy of GPT-4 in addressing and solving problems found within cryptographic examinations. We devised a multi-faceted methodology, presenting the model with a series of cryptographic questions of varying complexities derived from real academic examinations. Our evaluation encompasses both classical and modern cryptographic challenges, focusing on the model’s ability to understand, interpret, and generate correct solutions while discerning its limitations. The model was challenged with a spectrum of cryptographic tasks, earning 202 out of 208 points by solving fundamental queries inspired by an oral exam, 80.5 out of 90 points on a written Crypto 1 exam, and 287 out of 385 points on advanced exercises from the Crypto 2 course. The results demonstrate that while GPT-4 shows significant promise in grasping fundamental cryptographic concepts and techniques, certain intricate problems necessitate domain-specific knowledge that may sometimes lie beyond the model’s general training. Insights from this study can provide educators, researchers, and examiners with a deeper understanding of how cutting-edge AI models can be both an asset and a potential concern in academic settings related to cryptology. To enhance the clarity and coherence of our work, we utilized ChatGPT-4 to help us in formulating sentences in this paper.

A message verification scheme based on physical layer-enabled data hiding for flying ad hoc network

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for military as well as civilian applications such as search and rescue operations, disaster management, parcel delivery and agriculture, is becoming increasingly popular, mainly due to their versatile nature and relatively inexpensive operating costs. However, one of the most significant barriers in the widespread adoption of UAVs for the aforementioned applications is the increasing concern for wireless communication security within the network. Unfortunately, the nodes that comprise these networks are extremely constrained in terms of storage space, processing power and battery life, which require light-weight security protocols that align with these limitations. The current standards for message authentication and verification predominantly rely on lightweight cryptographic techniques. However, there is continual scope for improvement, particularly in the realm of computational efficiency, to better align with the constraints inherent to UAVs. This paper explores data hiding in a multi-UAV environment, to form a light-weight message verification scheme to confirm the identity of the transmitting node. First, five venues having the potential to hide data are analyzed. Based on the analysis of bit error rate obtained from the simulated multi-UAV environment, both cyclic prefix and padding bits are selected. Next, a codeword is generated for each transmission and it is embedded along with the unique ID key, κ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\kappa $$\\end{document} of the transmitting node into each venue respectively, and the output is transmitted as Hello packets. Subsequently, the receiving node extracts and decodes the codeword in order to verify the authenticity of the transmitting node. An evaluation of the proposed scheme has been conducted by using a simulated UAV environment. In the best case scenario, the proposed authentication scheme can achieve a successful verification rate of at least 80% at a maximum hop-count of 10 hops. Through computational cost analysis, in comparison to the conventional methods, the proposed scheme was found to have a significantly lower total execution time of 1.7μs\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$1.7\\mu s$$\\end{document}. In addition, the security analysis shows that when the proposed scheme is paired with physical unclonable functions (PUFs), it is able to resist common security attacks, including man-in-the-middle, replay and cloning attacks.

Hybrid KuFaI: A novel secure key generation algorithm using fast independent component analysis for physical layer security techniques

AbstractMany real‐world applications, such as smart cities, industrial automation, health care, and so forth, utilize IoT‐enabled devices as a part of wireless networks. IoT devices must have low power and low computation complexity requirements with proper measures of security challenges. Since traditional cryptography techniques are not computationally efficient, other alternatives, such as physical layer key generation (PLKG), is one of the attractive means to achieve security. In this paper, we propose to use a fast independent component analysis (FICA) based KuFaI (Kurtosis and FICA) algorithm for a secured PLKG system. This method reduces data dimensions and improves system performance regarding Bit Disagreement Rate (BDR) and randomness. In KuFaI, we rearrange the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) data set using FICA and then select components based on the kurtosis function. Results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed algorithm is far better than the previously used PCA‐based algorithm.

A Genetic Algorithm Based Hybrid Routing Technique for IOT Systems

Internet is gaining new heights in the today’s technological environment. Internet of things (IoT) is a new class of Internet based heterogeneous networked application systems which uses various types of sensor/detectors and devices for the exchange and collection of data. Devices need to be in the radio range and must remain continuously connected to the internet. IoT can sense and control the objects remotely across existing networked architecture and builds chances for direct combination among the physical world and computer-based systems. It is believed that, in future many of the household application will be based on IoT. Due to their applications in situations such as building home automation, emergencies, crisis management, energy management and healthcare, message security becomes of top importance in IoT. An optimized routing scheme using the intelligent mathematical techniques, which includes Genetic Algorithms(GA) and Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP), is proposed here and an optimized route can be encrypted using cryptanalytic techniques. Simulation results of GA and AHP are also presented here for the proposed network. It has been found that overall efficiency of the IoT system can be greatly improved with the proposed model. A comparison is also provided in discussion section which demonstrates that hybrid algorithms developed for IoT systems performs much better than traditional routing algorithms. Keywords: IoT; AHP;GA; Cryptanalytic Techniques; WSN

MIWET: Medical image watermarking using encryption and fusion technique

Digital augmentation of contemporary healthcare has directed the expansion of ICT-based systems. At this stage, a variety of telemedical support has been implemented to ensure the provision of medical utilities. Data Privacy, reliability, and credibility are the three security prerequisites that demand constant monitoring and corrective measures. Watermarking and cryptographic techniques offer a potentially viable solution for effectively addressing the aforementioned challenges. This article presents a robust and secure watermarking procedure that effectively safeguards the privacy and accuracy of digital medical data. This work uses a hybridization of NSST and DTCWT to implement a multimodality image fusion method that generates the watermark image. Further, a combination of three transforms namely, NSST, BEMD, and MSVD is used to conceal the generated mark in the carrier image. Also, the weighting factor is computed using HOG-based optimization to achieve a balance between visual quality and robustness. Finally, the marked carrier image is encrypted with a suitable encryption technique for better security. The proposed framework’s versatility, embedding capacity, robustness, and imperceptibility are evaluated, with the results justifying its efficacy. The study demonstrates a significant improvement of 47.65 % over the baseline, thus highlighting the framework’s superiority.

Blockchain assisted node validation approach for security provisioning in WSN environment

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a new technology that helps with a variety of practical uses, involving healthcare and monitoring the environment. In recent years, security has been considered as important topic in WSN since it is vulnerable to several security threats. Recent works uses cryptographic techniques to ensure security in WSN. In existing works, the security methodologies require high resources but still assure low level security. To resolve this issue, this paper proposes a node validation method which is lightweight as well as assures high level security. The main idea behind this work is to integrate Blockchain technology with WSN environment. We presented a novel Blockchain-assisted Node Validation (BlockNode) methodology for ensuring high level security. To maintain energy efficiency, the network is segregated into multiple clusters by Valid Cluster Formation (VCF) approach. In each cluster, optimum CH is selected by using type-II fuzzy algorithm. The VCF approach only allows the valid nodes which are authorized by Blockchain validation. Then, the data transmission is secured by Jacobian Curve Encryption (JCE) algorithm. For optimal route selection, Energy-aware Reinforcement Learning (ERL) algorithm is proposed. Overall, the proposed work high level security with minimum resource consumption. The experimental results obtained from NS-3.25 simulation tool confirms that the proposed work achieves better performance in security level, encryption & decryption time, delay, energy consumption, delivery ratio and throughput.

Cryptographic Solutions for Data Security in Cloud Computing:

Due to the recent explosion in the amount of data being created by various social media platforms, e-commerce websites, and other businesses, a paradigm shift from on-site data centers to the cloud is required. Concerns about privacy and secrecy have been a major obstacle to the mainstream adoption of cloud computing. The best approach to protect the confidentiality and privacy of cloud data is by using cryptographic techniques. Researchers have developed several cryptographic algorithms, but they all have lengthy, linear, predictable, memory-intensive execution times. The performance of the CPU, memory, run-time trend, and throughput of the three cryptographic schemes: Enhanced RSA (ERSA), Non-Deterministic Cryptographic Scheme (NCS), and Enhanced Homomorphic Scheme (EHS) are compared using RAsys. The experiment’s results demonstrated that NCS and EHS produced non-linear and non-deterministic run times. Again, NCS and EHS produced the lowest throughput and memory consumption for text and numeric data types when data sizes of 5n*102(KB(∈1,2,4,10,20,40) were processed. However, ERSA produced a run-time trend that was deterministic, linear, and predictable

An approach for designing fast public key encryption systems using white-box cryptography techniques

An approach for designing fast public key encryption systems using white-box cryptography techniques

Machine Learning and Cryptanalysis: An In-Depth Exploration of Current Practices and Future Potential

The rapidly evolving landscape of cryptanalysis necessitates an urgent and detailed exploration of the high-degree non-linear functions that govern the relationships between plaintext, key, and encrypted text. Historically, the complexity of these functions has posed formidable challenges to cryptanalysis. However, the advent of deep learning, supported by advanced computational resources, has revolutionized the potential for analyzing encrypted data in its raw form. This is a crucial development, given that the core principle of cryptosystem design is to eliminate discernible patterns, thereby necessitating the analysis of unprocessed encrypted data. Despite its critical importance, the integration of machine learning, and specifically deep learning, into cryptanalysis has been relatively unexplored. Deep learning algorithms stand out from traditional machine learning approaches by directly processing raw data, thus eliminating the need for predefined feature selection or extraction. This research underscores the transformative role of neural networks in aiding cryptanalysts in pinpointing vulnerabilities in ciphers by training these networks with data that accentuates inherent weaknesses alongside corresponding encryption keys. Our study represents an investigation into the feasibility and effectiveness of employing machine learning, deep learning, and innovative random optimization techniques in cryptanalysis. Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art advancements in this field over the past few years. The findings of this research are not only pivotal for the field of cryptanalysis but also hold significant implications for the broader realm of data security.

Implementing and developing multi-stage cryptography technique for low-cost long-range communication system

The requirement for a secure emergency communication system has become imperative in tandem with the industrial revolution. Additionally, the development of technology has led to increasingly robust penetration techniques that pose a threat to communication system security, leaving data vulnerable to unwanted third parties. This paper introduces a novel, powerful security approach that ensures a secure emergency communication system. Moreover, this research focuses on several cryptographic techniques among various symmetric and asymmetric ciphers, including advanced encryption standards, substitution, and transposition. The article presents an affordable and secure communication system that can transmit data over long distances with low power consumption using long-range technology. This system features a unique function that transmits updated locations, directing rescuers to the designated location.

INTEGRATION OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN DIGITAL LIBRARIES: A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DESIGN

This research aims to design software engineering that integrates blockchain technology in digital libraries to improve system security and reliability. This integration is expected to overcome challenges related to data security, service reliability, and efficiency in digital library management. The research methodology involves collecting data through literature, expert interviews, and observations, on the implementation of blockchain technology in digital libraries, then analyzing data to support data design such as etherum, smart contracts, address, node.js, solidity, metamask, and sublime text, then using the Agile Extreme Programming (XP) method for software development. The research results include the design of a decentralized blockchain architecture, the use of smart contracts, and the application of cryptographic techniques to enhance security. Immutability testing in the context of blockchain involves verifying data consistency, validating the process of adding data, testing the ability to delete data, testing against attacks, and activities on immutable data. These tests were conducted using the Truffle framework. The results show that the system is able to maintain data integrity well.

Statistical Fault Analysis of TinyJambu

The resource-constrained IoT devices have limited resources such as processing power, memory, and battery capacity. Therefore it is challenging to adopt traditional cryptographic algorithms on them. In order to find a solution, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated the Lightweight Cryptography (LWC) competition to standardize cryptographic algorithms for resource-constrained devices. The primary aim of our work is to implement and analyse selected finalist algorithms from the NIST competition using modern cryptanalysis techniques, with a focus on statistical fault attacks. Traditional analysis methods, such as linear and differential analysis, were not prioritized as most finalist algorithms have established defences against these methods. We implemented six of the selected finalist algorithms from the competition: Ascon, Elephant, GIFT-COFB, ISAP, TinyJambu, and Xoodyak. We chose TinyJumbu for statistical fault analysis because of its attractiveness, compact block size, and provision of a more lightweight keyed permutation.

Preserving Digital Evidence in Real Time Cloud Environment for Integrity and Legal Admissibility

Abstract: The emergence of cloud computing has transformed the manner in which organizations handle their data and digital assets, delivering unmatched convenience and scalability. Though with this, it has also brought about new and unique challenges in preservation of digital evidence in ensuring integrity and admissibility in legal proceedings. To enhance the credibility of digital evidence, the study will review literature on specialized software tools and techniques that help in preserving evidence in its unaltered state for legal examination. The researcher will determine the effectiveness of cryptographic techniques in ensuring integrity of digital evidence that is stored in cloud environment. A comparative analysis will be done. The study will give an overview of different techniques and critical considerations that will facilitate the admissibility of digital evidence in legal proceedings. This will help in revealing the gaps in digital forensics in a Cloud Environment.

Enhancing Data Security through Advanced Cryptographic Techniques

In a time when digital technology is everywhere, it is essential to have strong data security, This study addresses data security, focusing on advanced encryption methods, A secure connection, or encryption, protects private data from tampering and unauthorized access, The research explores modern cryptographic technologies, including blockchain-based solutions, quantum-resistant algorithms, and homomorphic cryptography, These evolving approaches provide increased defense against changing cyber threats, The study examines the theoretical foundations, real-world applications, and potential impacts on data security across a range of industries. The paper will first provide a comprehensive analysis of the cryptographic techniques now in use and then highlight emerging and contemporary risks to data security, Next, you will focus on the basics of contemporary encryption technologies, emphasizing their importance and potential uses. Case studies from healthcare, finance, and the Internet of Things (IoT) demonstrate how advanced encryption is used in real-world settings and how it impacts data security, The case studies highlight the necessity of new and innovative technologies to protect data (in all scenarios) when it is in motion, at rest, and during processing. In this paper, a rigorous methodology for evaluating the security and usability of cutting-edge cryptographic algorithms will be covered, the utility of these techniques in enhancing data security is highlighted by presenting experimental results and comprehensive data analysis. This paper concludes by highlighting how important it is to implement advanced cryptographic methods to address today's data security issues, it highlights the critical role that cryptography plays in protecting confidential information and provides a solid foundation for upcoming investigations and developments in the field of data security.

Encryption and Description of RGB Values in Images Using the Hill Chiper Algorithm

Information security related to computer use cannot be separated from cryptography. Hill cipher is an application of modulo arithmetic in cryptography. This cryptography technique uses a square matrix as the key used to carry out encryption and decryption. This cryptographic technique was created with the intention of being able to create ciphers (codes) that cannot be broken using frequency analysis techniques. Hill Cipher does not replace each of the same letters in the plaintext with other letters that are the same in the ciphertext because it uses matrix multiplication as a basis for encryption and decryption. Hill Cipher cryptography is a type of classic cryptography that uses a substitution method by providing random keys and the number is the same as the plaintext. The use of encryption and decryption using the Hill cipher algorithm is to help secure data so that it is not easily falsified or accessed by irresponsible people by changing the original image into a different form where the image is not easy to recognize. The encryption and decryption process was designed using the Java programming language using NetBeans 8.2 and the Hill Cipher algorithm to encrypt RGB digital images

Secure Proxy Re-Encryption Protocol for FANETs Resistant to Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks

In emergency situations, ensuring the secure transmission of medical information is critical. While existing schemes address on-road emergencies, off-road scenarios present unique challenges due to hazardous locations inaccessible to conventional vehicles. This research introduces a protocol for off-road emergencies, leveraging flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) formed by drones. The protocol, designed for users receiving emergency treatment, employs cryptographic techniques to protect sensitive information. To overcome the challenge of decrypting user medical records at emergency centers without the healthcare provider’s key, proxy re-encryption is employed. The control center (CC) securely generates encryption and decryption keys, facilitating the re-encryption process by the cloud server (CS) and transmission to the emergency center (E). The proposed protocol, free from pairing functions, underwent security and efficiency analyses, demonstrating resilience against chosen-ciphertext attacks (CCA) and collusion resistance (CR). Execution times of approximately 0.02 and 0.0 s for re-encryption and decryption processes, respectively, for a message size of 2000 bytes highlighted the efficiency of the protocol. The research contributes a secure and efficient proxy re-encryption protocol for off-road emergency medical information transmission within FANETs.

A public static agreement key based cryptography for secure data transmission in WSN based smart environment application

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is an emerging networking technology that allows for the low-cost, unattended monitoring of a variety of environments, thus WSN technologies have become increasingly important. Simultaneously, lack of security and poor energy efficiency is considered the major concerns in many routing protocols in various existing WSN protocols. Security and energy efficiency concerns are mainly due to the emergence of various kinds of malicious attacks because of advancements in networking technology. To mitigate these issues secured transmission is essential in any routing protocol. In order to provide safe data transfer in WSN-based smart environment applications, the TABEESR protocol (Trust Analysis Based Energy Efficient and Safe Routing) was developed. The proposed routing protocol encompasses four phases such as network creation and node deployment, grading for trust evaluation, route identification process and data transmission. The trust evaluation is performed with the aid of sensor packet features to categorize the positive nodes and negative nodes. The path identification process includes two processes such as cluster head selection through red fox optimization and relay node selection using a fuzzy interference system for energy efficient and secure path selection. A public static agreement key based cryptography technique is introduced for secure data transmission. The proposed TABEESR is tested with MATLAB software to validate its performance. SMEER, SHER, SRPA and AFSA are the prior routing protocols in WSN that are considered to compare the performance of the proposed routing protocol. The proposed TABEESR algorithm attained 95(%) of Average Residual Energy, 91 (%) of packet delivery ratio, 1350 (sec) network lifetime, 0.131 (Mbps) of throughput and 7(%) Packet Loss. Moreover, the proposed PSAKC algorithm attained 5.8 (%) information loss, 3.8 (sec) encryption time, 2.3 (sec) decryption time, 6 (sec) execution time, and 6.5 (J) energy consumption which is better than the prior methods. The proposed routing algorithm is applicable for providing security in both server to device and device to device in various smart applications.

Safeguarding Networks: The Role of Cryptography

Due to complex network threats, network security faces unprecedented challenges in a rapidly changing environment. These details highlight the importance of cryptography in protecting networks from today's threats. The development of technology has led to the increase in connected devices, the expansion of parking areas and the need for security measures. Honest and confidential information is protected by encryption technology using complex methods and algorithms. The brief reviews state-of-the-art cryptographic techniques and highlights the importance of quantum-resistant mechanisms against the threat of quantum computing. It explores how cryptography can be used together with technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, and emphasizes its importance in ensuring the security of these areas. It envisions the development and implementation of post-quantum cryptography, covers concepts such as homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, and addresses issues of cryptographic efficiency and creative control. It aims to protect networks from new threats and ensure secure data exchange by meeting the need for strong cryptographic protection in the evolving business environment.

FPGA-friendly compact and efficient AES-like 8 × 8 S-box

One of the main layers in the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the substitution layer, where an 8 × 8 S-Box is used 16 times. The substitution layer provides confusion and makes the algorithm resistant to cryptanalysis techniques. Therefore, the security of the algorithm is also highly dependent on this layer. However, the cost of implementing 8 × 8 S-Box on FPGA platforms is considerably higher than other layers of the algorithm. Since S-Boxes are repeatedly used in the algorithm, the cost of the algorithm highly comes from the substitution layer. In 2005, Canright used different extension fields to represent AES S-Box to get FPGA-friendly compact designs. The best optimization proposed by Canright reduced the gate-area of the AES S-Box implementation by 20%.In this study, we use the same optimization methods that Canright used to optimize AES S-Box on hardware platforms. Our purpose is not to optimize AES S-Box; we aim to create another 8 × 8 S-Box which is strong and compact enough for FPGA platforms. We create an 8 × 8 S-Box using the inverse field operation as in the case of AES S-Box. We use another irreducible polynomial to represent the finite field and get an FPGA-friendly compact and efficient 8 × 8 S-Box. The finite field we propose provides the same level of security against cryptanalysis techniques with a 3.125% less gate-area on Virtex-7 and Artix-7 FPGAs compared to Canright’s results. Moreover, our proposed S-Box requires 11.76% less gate on Virtex-4 FPGAs. These gate-area improvements are beneficial for resource-constraint IoT devices and allow more copies of the S-Box for algorithm parallelism. Therefore, we claim that our proposed S-Box is more compact and efficient than AES S-Box. Cryptographers who need an 8 × 8 S-Box can use our proposed S-Box in their designs instead of AES S-Box with the same level of security but better efficiency.