RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants / Edition 1

by Goutam Paul, Subhamoy Maitra

Overview

RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants is the first book to fully cover the popular software stream cipher RC4. With extensive expertise in stream cipher cryptanalysis and RC4 research, the authors focus on the analysis and design issues of RC4. They also explore variants of RC4 and the eSTREAM finalist HC-128.

After an introduction to the vast field of cryptology, the book reviews hardware and software stream ciphers and describes RC4. It presents a theoretical analysis of RC4 KSA, discussing biases of the permutation bytes toward secret key bytes and absolute values. The text explains how to reconstruct the secret key from known state information and analyzes the RC4 PRGA in detail, including a sketch of state recovery attacks. The book then describes three popular attacks on RC4: distinguishing attacks, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol attacks, and fault attacks. The authors also compare the advantages and disadvantages of several variants of RC4 and examine stream cipher HC-128, which is the next level of evolution after RC4 in the software stream cipher paradigm. The final chapter emphasizes the safe use of RC4.

With open research problems in each chapter, this book offers a complete account of the most current research on RC4.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367382162
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/19/2019
Series:	Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications
Pages:	311
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Goutam Paul is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Jadavpur University. Dr. Paul has published articles in numerous refereed journals, including Discrete Applied Mathematics, Journal of Mathematical Cryptology, and Designs, Codes and Cryptography. His research interests include cryptography, security, steganography, and combinatorial algorithms.

Subhamoy Maitra is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute. Dr. Maitra has contributed extensively to many peer-reviewed journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Discrete Mathematics, and Designs, Codes and Cryptography. He is also on the editorial board of Cryptography and Communications: Discrete Structures, Boolean Functions and Sequences. His research interests include cryptographically significant Boolean functions, design and cryptanalysis of stream ciphers, analysis of RSA and factorization, and cryptanalysis of digital watermarking schemes.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Cryptography. Stream Ciphers and RC4. Analysis of Key Scheduling. Key Recovery from State Information. Analysis of Keystream Generation. Distinguishing Attacks. WEP and WPA Attacks. Fault Attacks. Variants of RC4. Stream Cipher HC-128. Conclusion. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

I am delighted to introduce the first complete book on RC4, the most popular and widely deployed software stream cipher. … This book contains not only the authors’ own research materials, but it has nicely assimilated the results of others to make it a complete treatise on RC4 and its variants. I believe this book will be widely accepted as an important research monograph by both the students and experienced researchers in the field of cryptology.
—From the Foreword by Bimal Roy, founder of the Cryptology Research Society of India and director of the Indian Statistical Institute

Editorial Reviews

"This remarkable monograph is 'the first one on RC4.' The theory surrounding the development of RC4 is very helpful for the study of stream ciphers in general, as the authors say. The book will be of interest to scholars and students whose expertise lies in cryptography, applied mathematics, computer security, and so on."
--Zhixiong Chen, Mathematical Reviews, January 2013

"I am delighted to introduce the first complete book on RC4, the most popular and widely deployed software stream cipher. ... This book contains not only the authors' own research materials, but it has nicely assimilated the results of others to make it a complete treatise on RC4 and its variants. I believe this book will be widely accepted as an important research monograph by both the students and experienced researchers in the field of cryptology."
--From the Foreword by Bimal Roy, founder of the Cryptology Research Society of India and director of the Indian Statistical Institute

From the Publisher