212-81 EC-Council Certified Encryption Specialist (ECES) Questions and Answers

Explanation

Salt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)

A salt is random data that is used as an additional input to a one-way function that hashes data, a password or passphrase. Salts are used to safeguard passwords in storage. Historically a password was stored in plaintext on a system, but over time additional safeguards were developed to protect a user's password against being read from the system. A salt is one of those methods.

Correct answers: Transport mode and Tunnel mode

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec#Modes_of_operation

The IPsec protocols AH and ESP can be implemented in a host-to-host transport mode, as well as in a network tunneling mode.

3DES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES

Triple DES (3DES) has a three different keys with same size (56-bit).

S-PAP

Shiva Password Authentication Protocol (S-PAP) - PAP with encryption for the usernames/passwords that are transmitted.

Digital Certificate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_certificate

A public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the ownership of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about the identity of its owner (called the subject), and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents (called the issuer).

CHAP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge-Handshake_Authentication_Protocol

Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) is an identity verification protocol that does not rely on sending a shared secret between the access-requesting party and the identity-verifying party (the authenticator). CHAP is based on a shared secret, but in order to authenticate, the authenticator sends a “challenge” message to the access-requesting party, which responds with a value calculated using a “one-way hash” function that takes as inputs the challenge and the shared secret. The authenticator checks the response against its own calculation of the expected hash value. If the values match, the authentication succeeds, otherwise it fails. Following the establishment of an authenticated connection, the authenticator may send a challenge to the access-requesting party at random intervals, to which the access-requesting party will have to produce the correct response.

Explanation

Registration authority

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration_authority

Registration authorities exist for many standards organizations, such as ANNA (Association of National Numbering Agencies for ISIN), the Object Management Group, W3C, IEEE and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar function, in promoting the use of a particular standard through facilitating its use. This may be by applying the standard, where appropriate, or by verifying that a particular application satisfies the standard's tenants. Maintenance agencies, in contrast, may change an element in a standard based on set rules – such as the creation or change of a currency code when a currency is created or revalued (i.e. TRL to TRY for Turkish lira). The Object Management Group has an additional concept of certified provider, which is deemed an entity permitted to perform some functions on behalf of the registration authority, under specific processes and procedures documented within the standard for such a role.

Explanation

RSA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(cryptosystem)

RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is a public-key cryptosystem that is widely used for secure data transmission. It is also one of the oldest. The acronym RSA comes from the surnames of Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman, who publicly described the algorithm in 1977.

ADFVGX Cipher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADFGVX_cipher

ADFGVX cipher was a field cipher used by the German Army on the Western Front during World War I. ADFGVX was in fact an extension of an earlier cipher called ADFGX.

Invented by Lieutenant Fritz Nebel (1891–1977) and introduced in March 1918, the cipher was a fractionating transposition cipher which combined a modified Polybius square with a single columnar transposition.

Explanation

Asymmetric

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys, which may be disseminated widely, and private keys, which are known only to the owner. The generation of such keys depends on cryptographic algorithms based on mathematical problems to produce one-way functions. Effective security only requires keeping the private key private; the public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.

Single substitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_cipher#Simple_substitution

Substitution of single letters separately—simple substitution—can be demonstrated by writing out the alphabet in some order to represent the substitution. This is termed a substitution alphabet. The cipher alphabet may be shifted or reversed (creating the Caesar and Atbash ciphers, respectively) or scrambled in a more complex fashion, in which case it is called a mixed alphabet or deranged alphabet.

Null Ciphers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_cipher

A null cipher, also known as concealment cipher, is an ancient form of encryption where the plaintext is mixed with a large amount of non-cipher material. Today it is regarded as a simple form of steganography, which can be used to hide ciphertext.

Explanation

Elliptic Curve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography

For current cryptographic purposes, an elliptic curve is a plane curve over a finite field (rather than the real numbers) which consists of the points satisfying the equation:

CRL

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Revocation_List

Certificate Revocation List (or CRL) is "a list of digital certificates that have been revoked by the issuing certificate authority (CA) before their scheduled expiration date and should no longer be trusted".

DH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange

Diffie–Hellman key exchange is a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel and was one of the first public-key protocols as conceived by Ralph Merkle and named after Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman. DH is one of the earliest practical examples of public key exchange implemented within the field of cryptography. Published in 1976 by Diffie and Hellman, this is the earliest publicly known work that proposed the idea of a private key and a corresponding public key.

Explanation

Vigenère

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher

The Vigenère cipher is a method of encrypting alphabetic text by using a series of interwoven Caesar ciphers, based on the letters of a keyword. It employs a form of polyalphabetic substitution.

First described by Giovan Battista Bellaso in 1553, the cipher is easy to understand and implement, but it resisted all attempts to break it until 1863, three centuries later. This earned it the description le chiffre indéchiffrable (French for 'the indecipherable cipher'). Many people have tried to implement encryption schemes that are essentially Vigenère ciphers. In 1863, Friedrich Kasiski was the first to publish a general method of deciphering Vigenère ciphers.

Kerkchoff's principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle

Kerckhoffs's principle (also called Kerckhoffs's desideratum, assumption, axiom, doctrine or law) of cryptography was stated by Netherlands born cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs in the 19th century: A cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge.

Kerckhoffs's principle was reformulated (or possibly independently formulated) by American mathematician Claude Shannon as "the enemy knows the system", i.e., "one ought to design systems under the assumption that the enemy will immediately gain full familiarity with them". In that form, it is called Shannon's maxim. This concept is widely embraced by cryptographers, in contrast to "security through obscurity", which is not.

Explanation

The message is divided into blocks and each block is encrypted separately. This is the most basic mode for symmetric encryption

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_(ECB)

The simplest of the encryption modes is the electronic codebook (ECB) mode (named after conventional physical codebooks). The message is divided into blocks, and each block is encrypted separately.

Explanation

Symmetric algorithm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES

Triple DES (3DES or TDES), officially the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA or Triple DEA), is a symmetric-key block cipher, which applies the DES cipher algorithm three times to each data block. The Data Encryption Standard's (DES) 56-bit key is no longer considered adequate in the face of modern cryptanalytic techniques and supercomputing power. However, an adapted version of DES, Triple DES (3DES), uses the same algorithm to produce a more secure encryption.

Correct answers: RSA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(cryptosystem)

RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is a public-key cryptosystem that is widely used for secure data transmission. It is also one of the oldest. The acronym RSA comes from the surnames of Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman, who publicly described the algorithm in 1977. An equivalent system was developed secretly, in 1973 at GCHQ (the British signals intelligence agency), by the English mathematician Clifford Cocks. That system was declassified in 1997.

In a public-key cryptosystem, the encryption key is public and distinct from the decryption key, which is kept secret (private). An RSA user creates and publishes a public key based on two large prime numbers, along with an auxiliary value. The prime numbers are kept secret. Messages can be encrypted by anyone, via the public key, but can only be decoded by someone who knows the prime numbers.

The security of RSA relies on the practical difficulty of factoring the product of two large prime numbers, the "factoring problem". Breaking RSA encryption is known as the RSA problem. Whether it is as difficult as the factoring problem is an open question. There are no published methods to defeat the system if a large enough key is used.

Atbash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atbash

Atbash is a monoalphabetic substitution cipher originally used to encrypt the Hebrew alphabet. It can be modified for use with any known writing system with a standard collating order.

IDEA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Data_Encryption_Algorithm

In cryptography, the International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA), originally called Improved Proposed Encryption Standard (IPES), is a symmetric-key block cipher designed by James Massey of ETH Zurich and Xuejia Lai and was first described in 1991. The algorithm was intended as a replacement for the Data Encryption Standard (DES). IDEA is a minor revision of an earlier cipher Proposed Encryption Standard (PES).

The cipher was designed under a research contract with the Hasler Foundation, which became part of Ascom-Tech AG. The cipher was patented in a number of countries but was freely available for non-commercial use. The name "IDEA" is also a trademark. The last patents expired in 2012, and IDEA is now patent-free and thus completely free for all uses.

IDEA was used in Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) v2.0 and was incorporated after the original cipher used in v1.0, BassOmatic, was found to be insecure. IDEA is an optional algorithm in the OpenPGP standard.

Explanation

Key Schedule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_schedule

In cryptography, the so-called product ciphers are a certain kind of cipher, where the (de-)ciphering of data is typically done as an iteration of rounds. The setup for each round is generally the same, except for round-specific fixed values called a round constant, and round-specific data derived from the cipher key called a round key. A key schedule is an algorithm that calculates all the round keys from the key.

CRL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_revocation_list

In cryptography, a certificate revocation list (or CRL) is "a list of digital certificates that have been revoked by the issuing certificate authority (CA) before their scheduled expiration date and should no longer be trusted".

Explanation

Skipjack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(cipher)

Skipjack uses an 80-bit key to encrypt or decrypt 64-bit data blocks. It is an unbalanced Feistel network with 32 rounds.

By substituting each letter for the letter from the opposite end of the alphabet (i.e. A becomes Z, B becomes Y, etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atbash

The Atbash cipher is a particular type of monoalphabetic cipher formed by taking the alphabet (or abjad, syllabary, etc.) and mapping it to its reverse, so that the first letter becomes the last letter, the second letter becomes the second to last letter, and so on.

DES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

DES is the archetypal block cipher—an algorithm that takes a fixed-length string of plaintext bits and transforms it through a series of complicated operations into another ciphertext bitstring of the same length. In the case of DES, the block size is 64 bits. DES also uses a key to customize the transformation, so that decryption can supposedly only be performed by those who know the particular key used to encrypt. The key ostensibly consists of 64 bits; however, only 56 of these are actually used by the algorithm. Eight bits are used solely for checking parity, and are thereafter discarded. Hence the effective key length is 56 bits.

Explanation

CBC-MAC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBC-MAC

A cipher block chaining message authentication code (CBC-MAC) is a technique for constructing a message authentication code from a block cipher. The message is encrypted with some block cipher algorithm in CBC mode to create a chain of blocks such that each block depends on the proper encryption of the previous block. This interdependence ensures that a change to any of the plaintext bits will cause the final encrypted block to change in a way that cannot be predicted or counteracted without knowing the key to the block cipher. Using in WPA2 for integrity check and provides security against a replay attack.

Diffie-Hellman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange

Diffie-Hellman key exchange is a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel and was one of the first public-key protocols as originally conceptualized by Ralph Merkle and named after Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman. DH is one of the earliest practical examples of public key exchange implemented within the field of cryptography.

WPA2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access

WPA (sometimes referred to as the draft IEEE 802.11i standard) became available in 2003. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended it as an intermediate measure in anticipation of the availability of the more secure and complex WPA2, which became available in 2004 and is a common shorthand for the full IEEE 802.11i (or IEEE 802.11i-2004) standard.

Blowfish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowfish_(cipher)

Blowfish is a symmetric-key block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in many cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date. However, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) now receives more attention, and Schneier recommends Twofish for modern applications.

Blowfish has a 64-bit block size and a variable key length from 32 bits up to 448 bits. It is a 16-round Feistel cipher and uses large key-dependent S-boxes.

Explanation

Diffusion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_and_diffusion

Diffusion means that if we change a single bit of the plaintext, then (statistically) half of the bits in the ciphertext should change, and similarly, if we change one bit of the ciphertext, then approximately one half of the plaintext bits should change. Since a bit can have only two states, when they are all re-evaluated and changed from one seemingly random position to another, half of the bits will have changed state.

The idea of diffusion is to hide the relationship between the ciphertext and the plain text.

This will make it hard for an attacker who tries to find out the plain text and it increases the redundancy of plain text by spreading it across the rows and columns; it is achieved through transposition of algorithm and it is used by block ciphers only

Explanation

Brute force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack

A brute-force attack consists of an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. The attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the correct one is found. Alternatively, the attacker can attempt to guess the key which is typically created from the password using a key derivation function. This is known as an exhaustive key search.

A brute-force attack is a cryptanalytic attack that can, in theory, be used to attempt to decrypt any encrypted data (except for data encrypted in an information-theoretically secure manner). Such an attack might be used when it is not possible to take advantage of other weaknesses in an encryption system (if any exist) that would make the task easier.

Explanation

Decoding

Decoding - reverse process from encoding,converting the encoded message back into its plaintext format.

Explanation

Kerberos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(protocol)

Kerberos is a computer-network authentication protocol that works on the basis of tickets to allow nodes communicating over a non-secure network to prove their identity to one another in a secure manner. The protocol was named after the character Kerberos (or Cerberus) from Greek mythology, the ferocious three-headed guard dog of Hades. Its designers aimed it primarily at a client–server model and it provides mutual authentication—both the user and the server verify each other's identity. Kerberos protocol messages are protected against eavesdropping and replay attacks.

Kerberos builds on symmetric key cryptography and requires a trusted third party, and optionally may use public-key cryptography during certain phases of authentication. Kerberos uses UDP port 88 by default.

Explanation

Output feedback (OFB)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Output_feedback_(OFB)

The output feedback (OFB) mode makes a block cipher into a synchronous stream cipher. It generates keystream blocks, which are then XORed with the plaintext blocks to get the ciphertext. Just as with other stream ciphers, flipping a bit in the ciphertext produces a flipped bit in the plaintext at the same location. This property allows many error-correcting codes to function normally even when applied before encryption.

Blowfish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowfish_(cipher)

Blowfish is a symmetric-key block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in many cipher suites and encryption products.

Global deduction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis

Global deduction — the attacker discovers a functionally equivalent algorithm for encryption and decryption, but without learning the key.

Explanation

Scytale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytale

A scytale is a tool used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which is written a message. The ancient Greeks, and the Spartans in particular, are said to have used this cipher in 7th century BC to communicate during military campaigns.

The recipient uses a rod of the same diameter on which the parchment is wrapped to read the message. It has the advantage of being fast and not prone to mistakes—a necessary property when on the battlefield. It can, however, be easily broken. Since the strip of parchment hints strongly at the method, the ciphertext would have to be transferred to something less suggestive, somewhat reducing the advantage noted.

Explanation

RA (Registration Authority)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration_authority

Registration authorities exist for many standards organizations, such as ANNA (Association of National Numbering Agencies for ISIN), the Object Management Group, W3C, IEEE and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar function, in promoting the use of a particular standard through facilitating its use. This may be by applying the standard, where appropriate, or by verifying that a particular application satisfies the standard's tenants. Maintenance agencies, in contrast, may change an element in a standard based on set rules – such as the creation or change of a currency code when a currency is created or revalued (i.e. TRL to TRY for Turkish lira). The Object Management Group has an additional concept of certified provider, which is deemed an entity permitted to perform some functions on behalf of the registration authority, under specific processes and procedures documented within the standard for such a role.

They can form a part of viable encryption methods

for example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_cipher

The XOR operator is extremely common as a component in more complex ciphers. By itself, using a constant repeating key, a simple XOR cipher can trivially be broken using frequency analysis. If the content of any message can be guessed or otherwise known then the key can be revealed. Its primary merit is that it is simple to implement, and that the XOR operation is computationally inexpensive. A simple repeating XOR (i.e. using the same key for xor operation on the whole data) cipher is therefore sometimes used for hiding information in cases where no particular security is required. The XOR cipher is often used in computer malware to make reverse engineering more difficult.

Explanation

Correct answers: Mersenne Primes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_prime

Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form M_n = 2^n − 1 for some integer n. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th century. If n is a composite number then so is 2^n − 1. Therefore, an equivalent definition of the Mersenne primes is that they are the prime numbers of the form M_p = 2^p − 1 for some prime p.

A pseudo random number generator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_congruential_generator

A linear congruential generator (LCG) is an algorithm that yields a sequence of pseudo-randomized numbers calculated with a discontinuous piecewise linear equation. The method represents one of the oldest and best-known pseudorandom number generator algorithms. The theory behind them is relatively easy to understand, and they are easily implemented and fast, especially on computer hardware which can provide modular arithmetic by storage-bit truncation.

Enigma Machine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

The Enigma machine is an encryption device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the German military.

Enigma has an electromechanical rotor mechanism that scrambles the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Explanation

3DES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES

Triple DES (3DES or TDES), officially the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA or Triple DEA), is a symmetric-key block cipher, which applies the DES cipher algorithm three times to each data block.

Explanation

Type 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography#Type_1_Product

A Type 1 Product refers to an NSA endorsed classified or controlled cryptographic item for classified or sensitive U.S. government information, including cryptographic equipment, assembly or component classified or certified by NSA for encrypting and decrypting classified and sensitive national security information when appropriately keyed.

Explanation

Cryptoanalysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis

Cryptanalysis is the study of analyzing information systems in order to study the hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown.

Larger key sizes increase security

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_size

Key length defines the upper-bound on an algorithm's security (i.e. a logarithmic measure of the fastest known attack against an algorithm), since the security of all algorithms can be violated by brute-force attacks. Ideally, the lower-bound on an algorithm's security is by design equal to the key length (that is, the security is determined entirely by the keylength, or in other words, the algorithm's design doesn't detract from the degree of security inherent in the key length). Indeed, most symmetric-key algorithms are designed to have security equal to their key length. However, after design, a new attack might be discovered. For instance, Triple DES was designed to have a 168 bit key, but an attack of complexity 2112 is now known (i.e. Triple DES now only has 112 bits of security, and of the 168 bits in the key the attack has rendered 56 'ineffective' towards security). Nevertheless, as long as the security (understood as 'the amount of effort it would take to gain access') is sufficient for a particular application, then it doesn't matter if key length and security coincide. This is important for asymmetric-key algorithms, because no such algorithm is known to satisfy this property; elliptic curve cryptography comes the closest with an effective security of roughly half its key length.

Explanation

Public keys

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys, which may be disseminated widely, and private keys, which are known only to the owner. The generation of such keys depends on cryptographic algorithms based on mathematical problems to produce one-way functions. Effective security only requires keeping the private key private; the public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.

In such a system, any person can encrypt a message using the receiver's public key, but that encrypted message can only be decrypted with the receiver's private key.

Alice and Bob have two keys of their own — just to be clear, that's four keys total. Each party has their own public key, which they share with the world, and their own private key which they well, which they keep private, of course but, more than that, which they keep as a closely guarded secret. The magic of public key cryptography is that a message encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key. Alice will encrypt her message with Bob's public key, and even though Eve knows she used Bob's public key, and even though Eve knows Bob's public key herself, she is unable to decrypt the message. Only Bob, using his secret key, can decrypt the message assuming he's kept it secret, of course.

Alice and Bob do not need to plan anything ahead of time to communicate securely: they generate their public-private key pairs independently, and happily broadcast their public keys to the world at large. Alice can rest assured that only Bob can decrypt the message she sends because she has encrypted it with his public key.

Raw Quick Pair

https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/courses/compsci725s2c/archive/termpapers/yy.pdf

Du and Long2 (2000) introduced Raw Quick Pairs detecting method of Stego-images (the images that contain the steganographic message). The underlying principle of the method is that the number of close color pairs of Stego-images will be larger compare with the number of close color pairs of normal images. In contrast, Fridrich and Goljan (2001) pointed out that RQP method only works if the number of unique colors is relatively low; and the method can not be applied to grayscale images. However, this paper will outline the core principle of RQP method; and evaluate such critical comments in details. In addition, this paper suggests potential improvement of RQP method and provides one possible alternative.

Explanation

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_Equivalent_Privacy#Weak_security

In 2007, Erik Tews, Andrei Pychkine, and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann were able to extend Klein's 2005 attack and optimize it for usage against WEP. With the new attack it is possible to recover a 104-bit WEP key with probability 50% using only 40,000 captured packets. For 60,000 available data packets, the success probability is about 80% and for 85,000 data packets about 95%. Using active techniques like deauth and ARP re-injection, 40,000 packets can be captured in less than one minute under good conditions. The actual computation takes about 3 seconds and 3 MB of main memory on a Pentium-M 1.7 GHz and can additionally be optimized for devices with slower CPUs. The same attack can be used for 40-bit keys with an even higher success probability.

Explanation

Key escrow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_escrow

Key escrow (also known as a “fair” cryptosystem) is an arrangement in which the keys needed to decrypt encrypted data are held in escrow so that, under certain circumstances, an authorized third party may gain access to those keys. These third parties may include businesses, who may want access to employees' secure business-related communications, or governments, who may wish to be able to view the contents of encrypted communications (also known as exceptional access).

Substitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_cipher

In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting by which units of plaintext are replaced with ciphertext, according to a fixed system; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, triplets of letters, mixtures of the above, and so forth. The receiver deciphers the text by performing the inverse substitution.

Explanation

Any number only divisible by one and itself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number

A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, 1 × 5 or 5 × 1, involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product (2 × 2) in which both numbers are smaller than 4. Primes are central in number theory because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every natural number greater than 1 is either a prime itself or can be factorized as a product of primes that is unique up to their order.

Rijndael

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael. The algorithm described by AES is a symmetric-key algorithm, meaning the same key is used for both encrypting and decrypting the data.

PAP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_Authentication_Protocol

Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) is a password-based authentication protocol used by Point to Point Protocol (PPP) to validate users. Almost all network operating system remote servers support PAP. PAP is specified in RFC 1334.

PAP is considered a weak authentication scheme (weak schemes are simple and have lighter computational overhead but are much more vulnerable to attack; while weak schemes may have limited application in some constrained environments, they are avoided in general). Among PAP's deficiencies is the fact that it transmits unencrypted passwords (i.e. in plain-text) over the network. PAP is therefore used only as a last resort when the remote server does not support a stronger scheme such as CHAP or EAP.