Basic words

Let us understand some of the basic words used in cryptography..


1. Plain Text: An original Message which is used is called plain text.

2. Cipher Text: The encrypted message that is obtained when we encrypt the plain text is called cipher text.

3. Enciphering or Encryption: The process of converting from plain text to cipher text.

4. Deciphering or Decryption: The process of restoring the plain text from the cipher text.

5. Cryptanalysis: The techniques used for deciphering a message without any knowledge of the enciphering details.


Attacks on Encryption Algorithms:

The main objective of any attack on the cipher text would be to recover the key in the use rather than simply to recover the plain text. There are generally 2 approaches for this:

• Cryptanalysis : based on the properties of encryption algorithm.

• Brute-force attacks : The attacker tries all possible keys on a piece of cipher text.