Cryptography and Cryptanalysis Course

Lesson 1 • Cryptographic Primitives Taxonomy

Classifies ciphers, hash functions, and key exchange protocols as building blocks. Students can map any cryptographic scheme to its primitive category.

Lesson 2 • Goals and Security Properties

Defines confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation as cryptographic goals. Anchors all subsequent technical content to these security properties.

Lesson 3 • Mathematical Preliminaries

Covers modular arithmetic, prime numbers, and basic number theory essential for modern cryptography. Provides the algebraic toolkit used throughout the course.

Lesson 4 • Entropy and Randomness

Explains information-theoretic entropy and its role in key generation and cipher strength. Connects randomness quality to practical security guarantees.

Lesson 1 • Known-Plaintext and Crib Attacks

Exploits partial plaintext knowledge to recover keys in classical and early modern ciphers. Demonstrates how cribs were used against Enigma-encrypted traffic.

Lesson 2 • Frequency Analysis Techniques

Uses letter frequency distributions to attack monoalphabetic substitution ciphers. Builds analytical intuition foundational to all subsequent cryptanalytic methods.

Lesson 3 • Transposition Cipher Cryptanalysis

Identifies and breaks columnar and rail-fence transposition ciphers using anagramming. Contrasts transposition analysis with substitution cipher techniques.

Lesson 4 • Statistical and Entropy-Based Attacks

Uses chi-squared tests and entropy measures to distinguish ciphertext from plaintext. Provides quantitative tools for evaluating cipher strength statistically.

Lesson 1 • Block Cipher Modes of Operation

Covers ECB, CBC, CTR, GCM, and other modes, highlighting security implications of each. Students select appropriate modes for given security requirements.

Lesson 2 • Block Cipher Design Principles

Examines substitution-permutation networks, Feistel structures, and confusion-diffusion. Establishes the design rationale behind modern block ciphers.

Lesson 3 • AES and Modern Block Ciphers

Details AES internals including SubBytes, ShiftRows, MixColumns, and AddRoundKey. Compares AES to other standardized block ciphers.

Lesson 4 • Symmetric Key Management

Addresses key generation, distribution, storage, and rotation for symmetric systems. Connects key lifecycle management to operational security outcomes.

Lesson 1 • Hash Function Security Properties

Defines preimage resistance, second-preimage resistance, and collision resistance formally. Establishes the security baseline for evaluating any hash function.

Lesson 2 • SHA-3 and Sponge Construction

Covers the Keccak sponge construction, rate-capacity trade-offs, and SHA-3 variants. Contrasts sponge design advantages over Merkle-Damgard.

Lesson 3 • Hash Applications in Protocols

Applies hash functions to password storage, commitment schemes, and Merkle trees. Demonstrates how hash properties translate to protocol-level security guarantees.

Lesson 4 • Merkle-Damgard Construction

Explains the iterated compression function model underlying MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2. Identifies length-extension attacks as a structural weakness of this design.

Lesson 1 • Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Explains classic and elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman protocols and their security assumptions. Identifies man-in-the-middle vulnerabilities and authenticated variants.

Lesson 2 • RSA Cryptosystem

Derives RSA key generation, encryption, and decryption from number-theoretic foundations. Analyzes textbook RSA weaknesses and padding scheme mitigations.

Lesson 3 • Digital Signature Schemes

Covers RSA-PSS, DSA, and ECDSA signature generation and verification. Analyzes nonce reuse vulnerabilities and signature malleability issues.

Lesson 4 • Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Introduces elliptic curve groups, point addition, and the discrete logarithm problem on curves. Compares ECC efficiency and security to RSA at equivalent levels.

Lesson 1 • Side-Channel Attacks

Covers timing, power analysis, and electromagnetic emanation attacks on cryptographic implementations. Teaches countermeasures including masking, blinding, and constant-time coding.

Lesson 2 • Differential Cryptanalysis

Applies input difference propagation through cipher rounds to recover subkey bits. Analyzes S-box differential uniformity as the primary design defense.

Lesson 3 • Formal Attack Model Classification

Defines ciphertext-only, known-plaintext, chosen-plaintext, and chosen-ciphertext attack models. Establishes the adversarial framework used in all modern cryptanalytic analysis.

Lesson 4 • Linear Cryptanalysis

Uses linear approximations of S-boxes to build statistical distinguishers for key recovery. Connects linear bias magnitude to attack data complexity requirements.

Lesson 1 • Common Protocol Vulnerabilities

Catalogs replay, downgrade, oracle, and unknown key-share attacks with concrete examples. Provides design patterns that systematically prevent each vulnerability class.

Lesson 2 • Authentication Protocol Design

Covers challenge-response, mutual authentication, and zero-knowledge identification schemes. Analyzes reflection and interleaving attacks on flawed authentication protocols.

Lesson 3 • Formal Verification Methods

Applies BAN logic, ProVerif, and Tamarin to verify protocol security properties mechanically. Demonstrates how formal tools catch subtle flaws missed by manual analysis.

Lesson 4 • Key Establishment Protocols

Analyzes station-to-station, TLS handshake, and Signal protocol key establishment. Evaluates each protocol against forward secrecy and key compromise impersonation.

Lesson 1 • Hash-Based and Code-Based Schemes

Examines SPHINCS+ stateless hash-based signatures and Classic McEliece code-based encryption. Evaluates conservative security assumptions underlying each scheme.

Lesson 2 • Quantum Computing Threat Landscape

Explains Shor's and Grover's algorithms and their impact on RSA, ECC, and symmetric ciphers. Quantifies the security reduction each algorithm imposes on current standards.

Lesson 3 • Lattice-Based Cryptography

Covers Learning With Errors, Ring-LWE, and CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium schemes. Analyzes hardness assumptions and parameter selection for lattice primitives.

Lesson 4 • Post-Quantum Migration Strategy

Guides hybrid classical-quantum deployments, algorithm agility, and standardization timelines. Students can produce a migration roadmap for an existing cryptographic infrastructure.