Research and analysis of cipher decryption investigating various optimisation techniques

Abstract

ABSTRACT ‘Encryption protects more than your data; it's vital to a free society’ states Éxpressvpn (2016). Cryptography is around us more than realised and is vital to the privacy of our online lives. This research paper discusses the history, uses and future of ciphers and cryptography. Focusing on Decryption Techniques and Optimisation Techniques, along with a mass of literature to gain an advanced knowledge on cryptography. The research consists an advanced analysis of decryption techniques Frequency Analysis and Brute Force attack. A dataset consisting of 7 ciphers encrypted using a simple substitution cipher, have been attempted to be cracked using frequency analysis and brute force attack within a one minute time-frame. The results of this have been compared and discussed determining which technique should be a preferred method. Future improvements include adding more ciphers to the dataset, using more advanced MCMC algorithms to crack more advanced cipher encryption substitution, transposition cipher and substitution-transposition ciphers.