Security Volume 96 No

Contents Telektronikk Feature: Security Volume 96 No. 3 – 2000 ISSN 0085-7130 1 Guest Editorial; Editor: Øyvind Eilertsen Ola Espvik Tel: (+47) 63 84 88 83 2 An Introduction to Cryptography; e-mail: [email protected] Øyvind Eilertsen Status section editor: Per Hjalmar Lehne 10 Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Encryption for our Grandchildren; Tel: (+47) 63 84 88 26 Lars R. Knudsen e-mail: [email protected] 13 Development of Cryptographic Standards for Telecommunications; Editorial assistant: Leif Nilsen Gunhild Luke Tel: (+47) 63 84 86 52 e-mail: [email protected] 21 Show Me Your Public Key and I will Tell Who You Are; Lise Arneberg Editorial office: Telenor AS, Telenor R&D 26 Security in a Future Mobile Internet; PO Box 83 Henning Wright Hansen and Dole Tandberg N-2027 Kjeller Norway Tel: (+47) 63 84 84 00 34 Mobile Agents and (In-)security; Fax: (+47) 63 81 00 76 Tønnes Brekne e-mail: [email protected] 47 An Overview of Firewall Technologies; Editorial board: Habtamu Abie Ole P. Håkonsen, Senior Executive Vice President. 53 CORBA Firewall Security: Increasing the Security of CORBA Applications; Oddvar Hesjedal, Vice President, R&D. Habtamu Abie Bjørn Løken, Director. 65 Telenor’s Risk Management Model; Erik Wisløff Graphic design: Design Consult AS, Oslo 69 Risk Analysis in Telenor; Layout and illustrations: Erik Wisløff Gunhild Luke, Britt Kjus, Åse Aardal (Telenor R&D) Prepress: ReclameService as, Oslo Printing: Optimal as, Oslo Circulation: 4,000 Guest Editorial To a certain extent, security has been regarded Although most users are still not concerned with as a matter that should be left to military and the security of services, the awareness is cer- national security interests. With the advent of tainly growing rapidly, and the ability to offer worldwide electronic networks, such miscon- security-enhanced services will become an ever ceptions can be dangerous. Luckily, it is now more important issue for service providers. standard procedure to carry out a risk analysis of all new products and systems before they are Even if the “paper-less office” is still far from put into service. A problem is that security con- becoming a reality, more and more information siderations are often ignored until the product that previously only existed on paper is now is almost finished, when someone remembers: stored on electronic media. While this develop- “Oh, and we need some security”. Security fea- ment makes it easier to share information among tures are among the first to be removed from those who need it in their daily work, it also projects suffering from exceeded budgets. It is increases the potential for outsiders (malicious an important issue to make sure that security is or not) to intrude. Industrial espionage is a threat built into applications from the very beginning. that all competitive companies must consider. Last-minute introduction of security features will generally lead to both higher expenses and In the real world, the so-called “Bribe the secre- poorer security. tary attack” is probably the attack with the low- est complexity of them all, whereas crypto- Apart from the actual physical damage resulting graphic protection often is the strongest link in from a security breach, the loss of goodwill after the chain. Cryptographic security can be quanti- a blearing front page in the tabloid press or a fied (relatively) easily compared to other aspects prime-time news story must not be overlooked. that are much less tangible. Thus, we are in the The latter may actually represent a much more somewhat paradoxical situation that purely aca- serious and long-lasting loss potential. demic weaknesses in otherwise secure cryptographic algorithms get a disproportionate inter- This feature section addresses communication est compared to other security risks. Neverthe- security comprising both the security of the less, with the number of available strong algo- users (security services and security as a value rithms, there is simply no excuse for using weak added service) and the security of e.g. a tele- cryptography. phone operator (security against malicious in- truders, competitors, etc.). Physical security (e.g. barbed wire, locks and fences, but also personnel questions) will generally be left out. Telektronikk 3.2000 1 An Introduction to Cryptography ØYVIND EILERTSEN Cryptography constitutes one of the main building blocks of secure communications. While cryptography historically has been largely a military and diplomatic discipline, the development of electronic communication (e.g. the ubiquitous Internet) and the increased used of computers in almost all layers of society have emphasized the need for secure communication solutions also in the civilian sector. A particularly relevant issue is the so-called “new economy”, including electronic commerce, where the parts involved need cryptographic methods to prove their identity and to protect transactions against unauthorized disclosure and tampering. Øyvind Eilertsen (34) is Re- The purpose of this article is to present an introduction to some of the basic elements of search Scientist at Telenor R&D, cryptography. We will first look briefly at the history of cryptography and then have a closer Kjeller, where he has worked in look at some cryptosystems that are in use today. We conclude with some remarks about the Security group since 1992. Special interests include cryp- an application of quantum theory with possible far-reaching impact on the future of cryptography and mobile security. tography. [email protected] 1 Some Basic Notions means of some secure key channel. We write The word Cryptology is derived from the Greek the encryption and decryption as follows: words kryptós “hidden” and lógos “word”. Cryp- tology comprises cryptography (from kryptós C = Ek(P) and P = Dk(C) (1) and graphein, “write”), and cryptanalysis (cryp- tós and analyein (“loosen” or “untangle”). Cryp- The adversary E(ve), who is eavesdropping on tography is the science of principles and tech- the insecure channel between Alice and Bob, niques to hide information such that only those does not have access to k and cannot gain any authorized can reveal the content. Cryptanalysis information from the ciphertext. See Figure 1. describes methods of (unauthorized) solving or breaking of cryptographic systems. 1.1 Ciphers and Codes The principal classes of cryptographic systems A cryptographic algorithm or cipher is a system are codes and ciphers. A code is a system where (mapping) where a plaintext is transformed into sentences, words, syllables, letters, or symbols a ciphertext. This transformation is known as are replaced with certain groups of letters or encryption (or encipherment) and is defined by numbers (code groups). The code groups (nor- a key that is known only by the sender and the mally 2–5 letters or figures) are listed in a code- receiver. The inverse mapping is called decryp- book together with the corresponding plaintexts. tion (or decipherment). The idea behind the code can be to hide the message from unauthorized persons, to shorten the Breaking a cipher means disclosing the plaintext message in order to save transmission costs (e.g. without prior knowledge of the key. A perfect telegram expenses; bandwidth), or to translate cipher is impossible to break with any (finite) the message into a form that is suitable for trans- amount of resources. mission (e.g. Morse code). During World War II, the resistance movements in e.g. France and In its simplest form, the setting consists of the Norway received coded broadcast messages two persons A(lice) and B(ob)1) who want to from London where a short sentence had a pre- communicate securely over an insecure channel. arranged meaning. “Jean a un moustache très Alice encrypts the plaintext P into the ciphertext longues” was the code signal sent to the French C by means of the encryption function E and the resistance movement to mobilize their forces key k. Likewise, Bob uses the decryption func- once the Allies had landed on the Normandy tion D with k to decrypt C in order to find P. beaches on D-day. Before the communication can take place, Alice and Bob must have exchanged the key k by In this article we will concentrate on ciphers and discuss codes no further. 1) Alice and Bob were first introduced in [7]. 2 Telektronikk 3.2000 1.2 Cryptanalysis Key channel Figure 1 The fundamental While cryptography denotes the search for meth- cryptographic objective ods and algorithms to protect communication against adversaries, cryptanalysis finds weak- Alice Bob nesses in these algorithms (breaks them) to facil- itate eavesdropping or counterfeiting. Cryptanal- ysis is not necessarily “evil”; your friendly Eve cryptanalyst can disclose weaknesses in your systems and propose countermeasures. Much cryptologic research is concerned with finding weak points in existing cryptosystems, and then modify them to withstand these attacks. A fre- quently used method for testing the security The one-time-pad system, where the key and the of computer systems is employing a team of message have the same length, was described by experts with knowledge of security “holes” the American engineer Gilbert S. Vernam in (tiger team), and let them try to break into the 1917. If the key is truly random (e.g. resulting system. from fair coinflips), such a cipher is perfect, as was shown mathematically by Claude Shannon In earlier times, cryptosystems usually depended [9] in 1949. The main drawback with this cipher on the language in which the plaintext was writ- is that the key must be at least as long as the ten. Cryptanalysts employed knowledge of the message, and it must be used only once (hence message language, including the structure, fre- the name). Because of the key exchange prob- quencies of letters and words, and the relation- lem, one-time-pad systems are used only in en- ships between vowels and consonants.

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