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In cryptography, ciphertext or cyphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. [1] Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher to decrypt it.
Decrypt the second-to-last ciphertext block using ECB mode. C n = C n || Tail (D n, B−M). Pad the ciphertext to the nearest multiple of the block size using the last B−M bits of block cipher decryption of the second-to-last ciphertext block. Swap the last two ciphertext blocks. Decrypt the (modified) ciphertext using the standard CBC mode.
Integrity protection mechanisms such as MACs and digital signatures must be applied to the ciphertext when it is first created, typically on the same device used to compose the message, to protect a message end-to-end along its full transmission path; otherwise, any node between the sender and the encryption agent could potentially tamper with it.
The ciphertext message contains all the information of the plaintext message, but is not in a format readable by a human or computer without the proper mechanism to decrypt it. The operation of a cipher usually depends on a piece of auxiliary information, called a key (or, in traditional NSA parlance, a cryptovariable ).
The detailed operation of a cipher is controlled both by the algorithm and, in each instance, by a "key". The key is a secret (ideally known only to the communicants), usually a string of characters (ideally short so it can be remembered by the user), which is needed to decrypt the ciphertext.
E.g., an attacker who wants to know the decryption of a ciphertext c ≡ m e (mod n) may ask the holder of the private key d to decrypt an unsuspicious-looking ciphertext c′ ≡ cr e (mod n) for some value r chosen by the attacker. Because of the multiplicative property, c ' is the encryption of mr (mod n).
This is equivalent to the expectation that encryption schemes exhibit an avalanche effect. The purpose of diffusion is to hide the statistical relationship between the ciphertext and the plain text. For example, diffusion ensures that any patterns in the plaintext, such as redundant bits, are not apparent in the ciphertext. [3]
In cryptography, a ciphertext-only attack (COA) or known ciphertext attack is an attack model for cryptanalysis where the attacker is assumed to have access only to a set of ciphertexts. While the attacker has no channel providing access to the plaintext prior to encryption, in all practical ciphertext-only attacks, the attacker still has some ...