Applied Cryptography

Intro & Stream Ciphers

• What is cryptography?
  • Course overview
  • What is cryptography
  • History of cryptography
• Crash course in discrete probability
  • Discrete probability (crash course)
  • Discrete probability (crash course, continued)
• Stream Ciphers 1: the one-time pad and stream ciphers
  • Information theoretic security and the one-time pad
  • Stream ciphers and pseudorandom generators
  • Stream Ciphers 2: attacks and common mistakes
  • Attacks on stream ciphers and the one-time pad
• Stream Ciphers 3: real-world examples
  • Real-world stream ciphers
• Stream Ciphers 4: what is a secure cipher?
  • PRG security definition
  • Semantic security
  • Stream ciphers are semantically secure

Block Ciphers

• Block Ciphers 1: overview
  • What are block ciphers
• Block Ciphers 2: The Data Encryption Standard
  • The Data Encryption Standard (DES)
  • Exhaustive search attacks
  • More attacks on block ciphers
• Block Ciphers 3: AES and other constructions
  • The AES block cipher
  • Block ciphers from PRGs
• How to Use Block Ciphers 1: one-time key
  • Review: PRPs and PRFs
  • Modes of operation: one-time key
• How to Use Block Ciphers 2: many-time key
  • Security for many-time key (CPA security)
  • Modes of operation: many-time key (CBC)
  • Modes of operation: many-time key (CTR)

Message Integrity

• Message Integrity 1: definitions
  • Message authentication codes
  • MACs based on PRFs
• Message Integrity 2: constructions
  • CBC-MAC and NMAC
  • MAC padding
• Collision Resistance 1: what is a collision resistant function?
  • Introduction
  • Generic birthday attack
• Collision Resistance 2: constructions
  • The Merkle-Damgard paradigm
  • Constructing compression functions
• HMAC: a MAC from a hash function
  • HMAC (7 min.)
  • Timing attacks on MAC verification (8 min.)

Basic Key Exchange

• Basic Key Exchange 1: problem statement
  • Trusted 3rd parties
  • Merkle puzzles
• Basic Key Exchange 2: two solutions
  • The Diffie-Hellman protocol
  • Public-key encryption
• Number Theory 1: modular arithmetic
  • Notation
  • Fermat and Euler
  • Modular e'th roots
• Number Theory 2: easy and hard problems
  • Arithmetic algorithms
  • Intractable problems

Public-Key Encryption

• Public Key Encryption from Trapdoor Permutations
  • Definitions and security
  • Constructions
• Public Key Encryption from Trapdoor Permutations: RSA
  • The RSA trapdoor permutation
  • PKCS1
• Public Key Encryption from Trapdoor Permutations: attacks
  • Is RSA a one-way function?
  • RSA in practice

Digital Signatures

Intro to Blockchain

• What is the Blockchain?
• Application of the Blockchain.
• Differences between PoW and PoS.
• Bitcoin
  • Brief History Overview
  • Crypto used in Bitcoin (SHA256, ECDSA)
  • Full nodes
  • Different kinds of wallets (cold, paper, hardware), and the risks of using each.
  • Transactions and blocks structures.
  • The mining process, tx fees, miners reward.
  • Mining difficulty.
• Intro to dapps and smart contracts (Ethereum)
  • Truffle, ERC Process (ERC-20)

Packers

• Different types: Inline, New PE, Resource
• Cryptography techniques used.

Ransomware

• Overview on Ransomware evolution
• How to revert Ransomware operation?
• Petya ransomware full breakdown

CPU Enclaves

• CPU Enclaves technology overview
• Intel SGX breakdown – is it secure?
• What is attestation?
• Known attacks (side-channel)
• Simple Enclave programming

• C and Python programming.
• Linear Algebra, Probability, Group Theory.