COM6014 Fundamental Security Properties and Mechanisms
Answer both questions.
Question 1. Substitution Permutation Network Cipher and Differential Cryptanalysis (60 Marks)
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A simple 3-round substitution permutation network (SPN) cipher inspired by the Heys cipher is shown in Figure 1.
The cipher operates on 8-bit blocks. Key mixing is simple bitwise XOR. The 8-bit plaintext block P is XOR-ed bitwise with the 8-bit key K1 before the resulting 8-bit block enters the two first round S- boxes. The remaining key mixing operations are handled similarly.
A substitution box (S-box) is shown in Figure 2. This S-box is used throughout the cipher shown in Figure 1, i.e. all 6 S-boxes are identical.
The permutation part of the first two rounds is as shown in Figure 1. The final (third) round does not implement any permutation; the outputs from the final round S-boxes are simply XOR-ed bitwise with the key K4 to produce ciphertext C.
256 plaintext-ciphertext (P-C) pairs have been generated using the 3-round cipher and four secret keys (K1, K2, K3, K4). The 256 P-C pairs are given in the file TwoFiveSixPCs.txt that accompanies this assessment. Plaintexts and ciphertexts are given as integers with the natural binary interpretation, e.g. the integer 5 represents the 8-bit block 00000101, 129 represents the 8-bit block 10000001, and so on.
You are required to carry out Differential Cryptanalysis on the P-C pairs provided. You should:
a) Use Differential Cryptanalysis to recover the final round key K4. You should:
i. develop one or more suitable 2-round differential approximations involving bits of the plaintexts P and bits of intermediate ciphertexts U3 (as shown in Figure 1). [10 Marks]
ii. indicate any active S-boxes in your approximations and their biases. Indicate any tables (or other sources) you have used to calculate the biases [5 Marks]
iii. give the absolute value of the bias of any 2-round approximation derived above and show how all such biases were calculated. [5 Marks]
iv. Explain your specific choice of approximation(s). [5 Marks]
The above allows for using two approximations: one that targets the first four bits of K4 and one that targets the second four bits of K4. It also allows for the use of a single approximation that targets all 8 bits of the key K4. You should justify your choice.
The above is the theoretical part of the question. You need to complete this part to inform the practical part of the question immediately below.
b) Use the results above to recover the key K4. Show the results of your work. You will need to implement code to:
i. read-in the P-C pairs. [5 Marks]
ii. identify and use suitable (P,C), (P’,C’), where P XOR P’=∆P, i.e. the plaintext
difference part of a differential approximation. [5 Marks]
iii. carry out the (partial) decryption of pairs of relevant ciphertexts for a given
(possibly partial) key guess, i.e., to obtain the appropriate U3 bits. [10 Marks]
iv. carry out the differential approximation checking between appropriate ∆P bits and
∆U3 bits. [5 Marks]
v. identify promising candidates for K4. You should state in your answer why
identified candidate(s) are particularly promising. [5 Marks]
c) Outline how you would recover all remaining keys, i.e. K1 , K2 , and K3. (You are not expected to actually recover them, just outline how you would do this.) [5 Marks]
Figure 1. Simple Very Small SPN Cipher
Figure 2. Specification of the Common S-Box
Q2 Podcast on Authentication (40 Marks)
You are required to produce a ‘podcast’ for local radio on the topic of “user authentication”. The intended listeners are the general public. Accordingly, your podcast should avoid technical jargon. It should:
• indicate what user authentication is and why it is needed;
• identify major user authentication approaches and give illustrative examples;
• highlight some practical downsides/challenges with user authentication and how they can be
addressed;
• highlight some controversial issues (or potentially controversial issues); and
• give an indication of how you see the future of user authentication in cybersecurity evolving.
Marks are awarded for:
• Topic content. Selection of content. Coverage of the above requirements. Is there a coherent and balanced narrative? [24 Marks]
• Appropriate expression. Will the public understand it? It is expressed in an accurate but accessible way? [8 Marks]
• Oral delivery. Is there a natural and engaging feel to your presentation? [8 Marks]
You should prepare a script file for your podcast (i.e., a file that has the textual version of your podcast content) and an audio file. [The script will allow the markers to determine what is being said if the audio is unclear.] The duration of the podcast must be between 2 minutes 55 seconds and 3 minutes. It must be submitted in a common audio format (mp3 preferred).
A folder containing all necessary submission elements should be compressed (using zip) and submitted via the MOLE site. A COM6014 blog will be maintained specifically for this assignment. Queries on this assignment should be made via that blog.
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