PREPARED BY
ALAA PRINCE ABDELHALIM
TASK 3 REPORT
OFFENSE CREST
CYBER SECURITY PAGE 02
PROBLEM
You as a cryptanalyst have been chosen by the secret service to
decrypt the following message captured by radio during WW2 “Oc
sjc zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”, The Reconnaissance
team told you that the key length may be 3 chars and they also
heard the British enemy talking about something called Vigenère.
Assumption 1: Key is 3 characters
Let’s split this encrypted sentence into 3-character words.
ocs jcz wpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmm jnj gej wqk
Assumption 2: Let’s try to replace the most repeated character by the most
repeated character in general. We can tell the character by the chart below.
OFFENSE CREST
CYBER SECURITY PAGE 03
The frequencies of the characters found in the sentence captured are as the
following:
CHARACTER FREQUENCY
J 6 CHARACTER INDEX CHARACTER INDEX
M 6 A 0 Z 25
Q 4
B 1 Y 24
C 2
C 2 X 23
S 2
D 3 W 22
W 2
E 4 V 21
X 2
F 5 U 20
O 1
G 6 T 19
Z 1
H 7 S 18
P 1
I 8 R 17
L 1
J 9 Q 16
V 1
N 1 K 10 P 15
G 1 L 11 O 14
K 1 M 12 N 13
We can tell that the most repeated character is J. So, let’s try assuming J, in
the first word we meet, is E.
ocs E cz
In order for E to be J, E moved 5 moves. Making the first letter of the key the
letter F.
Let’s try to decrypt the first letter in another word. O in the beginning would
be J, which makes this assumption wrong as there’s no English word with two
letters start with J that makes sense in the beginning.
OFFENSE CREST
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Assumption 3: Let’s try to replace J with the second most repeated character
alphabetically which is T.
ocs T cz
In order for T to be J, T moved 16 moves. Making the first letter of the key the
letter Q.
Let’s try to decrypt the first letter in another word. O in the beginning would
be Y, which makes this assumption wrong as there’s also no English word with
two letters start with Y that makes sense in the beginning. This is the same
problem that happened with the previous assumption.
Assumption 4: Let’s try to replace J with the third most repeated character
alphabetically which is A.
ocs Acz
In order for A to be J, A moved 9 moves. Making the first letter of the key the
letter J.
Let’s try to decrypt the first letter in another word. O in the beginning would
be E, which also doesn’t make sense. It’s hard to recall any English word
starting with E and consists of two letters in the beginning of the sentence.
OFFENSE CREST
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Assumption 5: : Let’s try to replace J with the fourth most repeated character
alphabetically which is O.
ocs O cz
In order for O to be J, O moved 21 moves. Making the first letter of the key the
letter V.
Let’s try to decrypt the first letter in another word. O in the beginning would
be T, this one actually kind of makes sense. T starting in the beginning and
consisting of two words could be the word “To”. Continuing this assumption,
let’s try reading the encrypted sentence with the replaced characters to see if
it actually makes sense.
“oc sjc zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
“ TO sO c zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
This sentence seems a bit ambiguous. As the word “To” in the beginning
followed by a word contains o in the middle is a bit uncertain. But let’s try to
replace the letter C in the second word assuming that the second letter of the
key made the second letter after T is O.
In order for O to be C, O moved 14 moves. Making the second letter of the key
the letter O.
V O
So, the encrypted sentence would be like this.
“ TO s OO zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
Which makes absolutely no sense. Let’s move to the next assumption
OFFENSE CREST
CYBER SECURITY PAGE 06
Assumption 6: Let’s focus on the other most repeated character in our
sentence, which is the letter M. The other character didn’t seem to be out of
the most common characters, so let’s focus on the other letter M as it’s having
the same frequency occurrence in the sentence.
Let’s try to replace the letter M with the letter E.
ocs jcz wpw x E j
In order for E to be M, E moved 8 moves. Making the second letter of the key
the letter I.
Let’s try to decrypt the second letter in the first word. It would be U. The
sentence doesn’t make sense as there’s no English word that consists of two
letters would end with the letter U at the beginning of the sentence. So, this
approach is incorrect. Let’s continue and move to the next assumption.
Assumption 7: Let’s try to replace M with the second most repeated character
alphabetically which is T.
ocs jcz wpw x T j
In order for T to be M, T moved 19 moves. Making the second letter of the key
the letter T.
Let’s try to decrypt the second letter in the first word. It would be J. The
sentence doesn’t make sense as there’s no English word that consists of two
letters would end with the letter J at the beginning of the sentence. So, this
approach is incorrect. Let’s continue and move to the next assumption.
OFFENSE CREST
CYBER SECURITY PAGE 07
Assumption 8: Let’s try to replace M with the third most repeated character
alphabetically which is A.
ocs jcz wpw x Aj
In order for A to be M, A moved 12 moves. Making the second letter of the key
the letter M.
Let’s try to decrypt the second letter in the first word. It would be Q. The
sentence doesn’t make sense as there’s no English word that consists of two
letters would end with the letter Q at the beginning of the sentence. So, this
approach is incorrect. Let’s continue and move to the next assumption.
Assumption 9: Let’s try to replace M with the fourth most repeated character
alphabetically which is O.
ocs jcz wpw x O j
In order for O to be M, O moved 24 moves. Making the second letter of the key
the letter Y.
Let’s try to decrypt the second letter in the first word. It would be E. Which
means that the word in the beginning of the sentence ends with E. This makes
sense. Let’s continue this approach. It could be the word “We”.
“oc sjc zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
“ WE sjc zwpw x O j qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
The sentence isn’t having any flaws. Let’s continue this approach.
OFFENSE CREST
CYBER SECURITY PAGE 08
Let’s replace all the Ms in the middle with the letter O.
“oc sjc zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
“ WE sjc zwpw x O j qO m slv xO j qO mj njgejwqk”
Let’s find the first letter of the key. In order for W to be O, W moved 18
moves. Making the first letter of the key the letter S.
S Y
Let’s try to decrypt all the words with the key that we currently have.
ocs jcz wpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmm jnj gej wqk
WE s REz ERw FO j YO m ANv FO j YO m RPj OG j ES k
“ WE sRE z ERw FO j YO m ANv FO j YO m R Pj OG j ES k”
Assumption 10: We can tell that the second word is the word “Are”.
In order for A to be S, A moved 18 moves, making the third letter of the key is
S Y S
We can conclude that this is the key to our encrypted sentence. Let’s try to
decrypt the sentence using this key.
“oc sjc zwpw xmj qmm slv xmj qmmj njgejwqk”
“ WE ARE HERE FOR YOU AND FOR YOUR PROGRESS”
We now have finally found our key “ SYS ”.
PREPARED BY
ALAA PRINCE ABDELHALIM
