International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2020 119

ISSN 2250-3153

Cryptography: Avalanche effect of AES and RSA

Rohit Verma*, Aman Kumar Sharma**

* Department of Computer Science, Himachal Pradesh University, India

*[email protected], **[email protected]

DOI: 10.29322/IJSRP.10.04.2020.p10013
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Abstract- Security is a major concern in the field of computer science. With the advancement in technology security of data from theft
has become a major obstacle. It is necessary to encrypt data before sending it through the internet. Cryptography plays an important
role. Through cryptography, one can easily convert his/her data in a human unreadable form and send it over the internet. In this paper
two most widely used cryptography algorithms AES and RSA have been analyzed. Simulation is performed using CrypTool. This
simulation is performed on two different types of data. These algorithms are analyzed based on the avalanche effect due to change in a
single character of plain text and memory required by these algorithms in the secondary storage device.
Index Terms- AES, asymmetric key, avalanche effect, cryptography, RSA.

I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays transmission of plain data (readable data) over the internet is not considered safe because of various intruders, that try to steal
our precious information. This precious information could be like e-banking passwords, confidential emails, or some social media private
conversations. So, to make our data secure some safety mechanisms are used. One of those safety mechanisms is cryptography.
Cryptography plays a vital role in the security of information [1]. Cryptography is a Greek word which means "study of hidden secrets"
[2] [3]. In cryptography plain text message gets converted in some human unreadable form or ciphertext; termed as encryption and at
the receiver side, that ciphertext or encoded text gets decoded into plain text which is in human-readable form; termed as decryption.
So, from this, it is stated that decryption is the reverse process of encryption. The system which performs both encryption and decryption
is called cryptosystem. Figure 1 shows how encryption and decryption were done.

Figure 1: Cryptography [1]

The main aim of cryptography is to provide integrity, authentication, confidentiality, authorization, and availability [4] [5].
1. Integrity: When data is exchanged between two parties, the receiver has to ensure that data sent by the intended sender and
not been altered by any other unintended person in between transmission. Cryptography secures the data from passive as
well as from active attacks.
2. Authentication: when the receiver is not sure who sends the data. Authentication can be achieved either by using username
or password, digital signatures or by using secret-key algorithms.
3. Confidentiality: Protecting the data from the disclosure from unintended persons. Other than legitimate users no other can
read the data transmitted.
4. Authorization: setting the privileges or access levels to different users on different resources so that each user should get
as much access as they need.

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5. Availability: the ability of the user to access any resource or any information when needed. When any system gets attacked
by the intruder the services of users should not affect. So, cryptography ensures that the user continues to get services even
in case of an attack.

In cryptography avalanche effect [1] defines a specific property of encryption algorithm. Avalanche effect is one of the most essential
property of any cryptography algorithm. It means that a minor change in plain text or even a bit of plain text gets changed then it should
result in a significant change in the plain text or multiple bits of ciphertext should change.
A good cryptography algorithm should always satisfy the following equation:
Avalanche > 50% [2]
This ensures that the attacker should not easily predict the ciphertext from plain text or vice versa. The cryptography algorithm that does
not satisfy the Avalanche effect equation and easily breached by the cryptanalyst.

A. Terms used

Plain Text: The unique message that Alice/sender wants to send to bob/receiver is called plain text. This message is in readable form,
anyone can read this message.

Cipher Text: The encoded or encrypted message is called ciphertext. This message cannot be understood by anyone except the sender
(who is sending the message) or by the receiver (to whom the data is sent).

Algorithm or cipher: It is a well-defined mathematical function that is used to encrypt or decrypt data.

Key: String of bits that are used by the cryptographic algorithm to convert plain text message into ciphertext [6].

Avalanche effect: if a single bit of ciphertext gets altered then it should alteration multiple bits of a plain text message or vice versa.

II. TYPES OF CRYPTOGRAPHIC ALGORITHMS

Based on keys used for the encryption and decryption cryptography algorithms are categorized into two types:
1. Symmetric key cryptography
2. Asymmetric key cryptography (public-key cryptography)

A. Symmetric key cryptography (secret key cryptography)

It is also recognized as Private Key Cryptography or secret key cryptography. The symmetric key algorithm is divided into two types
based on the type of data they use for encryption and decryption processes. In figure 2 categories of symmetric algorithms are shown.

Figure 2: Types of symmetric algorithms

The input of block cipher is a block of plain text and it generates a block of ciphertext, generally of the same size [7]. The size of the
block depends upon the scheme the user is using. The choice of block size does not affect the strength of the encryption algorithm. The
strength of cipher depends upon the key used in the encryption process. In-stream cipher one bit at a time gets converted into ciphertext.
In the symmetric algorithm, the only key is used for encryption and decryption process, which is shared among the sender and receiver
during the transmission of data. This key should be kept secret because a single key is responsible for encryption and decryption of data.

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Figure 3: Symmetric key cryptography

Figure 3 shows the encryption and decryption process of symmetric key algorithms.

B. Asymmetric Key Cryptography (secret key cryptography)

In these algorithms, two different keys are used. One key i.e. public key is used for encryption of data and the second key i.e. the private
key is used for decryption of data. Data get encrypted with the public key of the receiver which is declared publically and decrypted by
the private key of the receiver which is kept secret by the receiver. No key other than the receiver's private key can decrypt data not even
key used for encryption can able to decrypt that data [8].

Figure 4: Asymmetric key cryptography

Encryption and decryption process of asymmetric key algorithms are shown in figure 4.

III. ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARD (AES) ALGORITHM

AES is one of the most popular cryptography algorithms that is used in modern applications. Another name given to AES is Rijndael.
Rijndael was proposed by Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. The name Rijndael was a combination of their surnames (Rijmen and
Daemen) [9]. It is used in many protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security. Rijndael operates on a
mathematical concept known as the Galois field theory [10]. The plain text block size varies from 128 bits to 256 bits [11]. Table 1
shows the key size, plain text block, and several rounds.

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Table 1: Round Length

Key Size Block Size Number of Rounds
128 128 10
192 128 12
256 128 14

Number of rounds in AES is variable and depends on the length of the key [12] [13]

Figure 5: Advanced Encryption Standard [14]

Each round uses a different 128-bit round key, which is calculated from the original AES key.

IV. RSA ALGORITHM

RSA algorithm is named after its inventors Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman [15]. It was developed in 1978. It is based
on a mathematical fact that it is easy to find and multiply two large prime numbers but factoring them is a difficult task [16]. The private
and public key used for encryption and decryption is based on this fact.

Algorithm:
1. Elect two big prime numbers P and Q.
2. Compute N by multiplying P and Q
N= P * Q
3. Choose the public key E such that it is not a factor of
(P-1) and (Q-1)
4. Choose the private key D such that it satisfies the following condition
(D*E) mod (P-1) * (Q-1) = 1
5. For encryption, calculate cipher text (CT) from plain text (PT)
CT = PTE mod N
6. Send ciphertext (CT) to receiver
7. For decryption calculate plain text (PT) from ciphertext (CT)
PT = CTD mod N

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V. PREVIOUS WORK DONE

The study presented by Mandal et al. [17], use two most common algorithms i.e. data encryption standard (DES) and Advanced
Encryption Standard (AES) and they are implemented using MATLAB and compared on the basis of avalanche effect occurred due to
variation of one bit in the key by keeping plain text constant. They concluded that the avalanche effect of AES is high as compared to
DES.
Similarly, Bhat et al. [18], compared DES and AES based on avalanche effect and encryption time in MATLAB and they concluded
that AES has a high avalanche effect and DES requires more encryption and decryption time as compare to AES.

VI. EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT

For the experiment, CrypTool is used as a simulator. The computer used in the simulation was Intel® Core (TM) i7-7700 HQ CPU @
2.80 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and 1TB HDD. The performance of these algorithms are evaluated on the basis of parameters such as
avalanche effect and storage memory required by the algorithms to store ciphertext.
This experiment is performed on two different data:
1) Data 1: Contains alphabetical character (cryptography = cryptogrephy).
2) Data 2: Contains alphanumeric character (data4 = deta2).

Table 2: Algorithm Setting

Algorithm Key in Bits Block Size

(Bits)
AES 256 128
RSA 512 64

Table 2 shows the algorithm setting for both types of data.

VII. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Experimental Results of RSA and AES are shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Avalanche effect of algorithms

Avalanche Avalanche
(AES) (RSA)
Data1 47% 51%

Data2 53% 56%

Table 3 displays the avalanche effect of cryptography algorithms. The results show that AES has a low avalanche effect therefor anyone
can easily find out the plain text from the ciphertext. Whereas RSA has a high avalanche effect which makes RSA more secure.

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60
55
50

Avalanche effect
45
40
Data1 Data2

AES RSA

Figure 6: Avalanche effect of algorithms

Figure 6 is a graphical representation of the avalanche effect. For analysis single character of plain text data is changed. The comparison
shows that AES has significantly below average avalanche effect for data1. So, AES is not suitable for the encryption of a single
character type of data. Whereas RSA performs well in both the cases hence making it suitable for the encryption and decryption process.

Figure 7: Storage size of algorithms

Figure 7 shows that in terms of storage space needed RSA performs poorly as RSA needs more storage space as compared to the AES
algorithm. RSA needs four times more storage space as compared to the AES algorithm. If someone has storage as a constraint then
AES can be used as a prime cryptography algorithm.

VIII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

In the security of data, cryptography plays an important role. This work presents the comparative study of cryptographic algorithms i.e.
RSA and AES on the basis of avalanche effect and storage space these algorithms needed. An experimental result shows that RSA has
a high avalanche effect as equating to AES which makes it difficult to break. Plain text encrypted with the RSA has more security other
than plain text encrypted with AES. In terms of memory required, AES needs less storage memory. So, from a security point of view,
RSA is an ideal algorithm for encryption. In the future, these algorithms can be implemented on different simulators. New performance
matric can be formed which can give more ideas about these algorithms and their effect on the data.

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