Applications of Genetic Algorithms in Cryptology

Abstract

Cryptology deals with the design and analysis of secure communication and information management systems. Cryptography protects vital information from adversaries by the process of encryption and cryptanalysis provides adversaries information being communicated by exploiting cryptographic weaknesses. Cryptography is the key technology which is used in various information security applications to achieve security solutions such as confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, availability and non repudiation. Nature inspired computing applied successfully in various artificial intelligence and pattern recognition problems of various fields gives an inspiration to apply in cryptology. Evolutionary computing is being applied nowadays to achieve solutions of cryptographic and cryptanalytic problems. In this paper, we present brief on cryptosystem and overview on applications of genetic algorithms in cryptology. Findings show that the work on nature inspired computing in cryptology is minimal but the applications of genetic algorithms are increasing. The genetic algorithms are not only applied on less complex and classical ciphers but some block ciphers are also attempted for their solutions. Further insight research is needed to tackle various problems of modern cryptography using genetic or other evolutionary computing techniques.

Genetic programming for improved cryptanalysis of elliptic curve cryptosystems

“…For example, genetic algorithms have been employed in generating keys for elliptic curve cryptosystems [3]. With respect to cryptanalysis, genetic algorithms have been used in various ways to attack classical ciphers, block ciphers and stream ciphers [4] [5] [6] [7], and to analyze weak keys for ciphers [8]. Laskari et al [9] provide a comprehensive overview of the application of computational intelligence techniques used in cryptographic and cryptanalysis studies.…”