Understanding cryptanalysis
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, threat actors such as hackers use cryptanalysis to break an encryption cipher and retrieve the plaintext data. While this technique is often associated with the bad guys, such as hackers, many government agencies decipher encrypted data for the purpose of monitoring for any potential threats. Even security appliances such as next-generation firewalls have the ability to decipher an encrypted packet, inspect the contents for any potential malware, and re-package the message before forwarding it to the destination.
The following are various methods that are used during cryptanalysis:
- Brute force: In the brute-force method, all possible combinations of a key are tried out in the attempt to eventually discover the correct secret key. Since encryption ciphers are mathematical techniques that are used to convert a plaintext message into ciphertext or encrypted data, all ciphers are vulnerable to this type of attack...
