A Dynamic Encryption – The Facts

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As we live in a very dynamic and constantly changing world, where new information and ideas are appearing and disappearing at really fast pace, we should notice that data protection and critical information security play a crucial role in maintaining our everyday’s lives. For that reason, invoking the technique of dynamic encryption could be strategically important in this digital time. In this article we should attempt to provide the answers to the following questions. What is critical information? Are we going more intelligent? Why the concept of dynamic encryption matters? What could be the future of modern cyber security? Well, let’s begin.

What is Critical Information?

In security practice, it is very important to define critical information as an information or data that is strategically or vitally important for some information or communication system operations. The term of critical information is strongly connected to the concept of critical infrastructure. In reality, critical infrastructure relies on critical information. What is critical infrastructure for real? Well, it’s every infrastructure that strategically means for some nation or country. For instance, here, we could include power plants, airports, telecommunication systems, the government’s departments, information or cyber infrastructure, transportation systems and so on. In other words, everything that plays a vital role in everyday’s life of the country and its people.

We would try to explain that critical information better? At this stage, it can appear as unclear what it could represent. Firstly, it’s very significant to understand how modern technical and information systems work, because they are the best indicators of critical infrastructure trends. As it is known from nowadays engineering and computer science experience, the operation of technical systems greatly depends on computers and digital information transmission. For example, in recent power plant systems there are the computers that maintain communication and information flow within the sub-systems and that are responsible for the production of electricity. If someone would cut off the signal or try to disturb it, it would cause a great damage to the power plant functioning. For that reason, we see that information transfer as critical or vital for the operation of critical infrastructure system such as, in this case, that power plant.

Let us summarise this part of the article. Critical information is every information transfer within digital or cyber part of some critical systems on which that system depends. The lack of communication or data exchange inside the system can cause damage or even catastrophical consequences to critical infrastructure and do harm to entire nation.

Are we going more intelligent?

The answer to this question is yes. Modern security systems are going very intelligent. The concept of intelligence-driven security systems is gaining popularity nowadays. Well, it’s not only up to popularity, but rather to a quite good practical results it can offer. Let’s start explaining these.

Today’s security systems relies on intelligence. By definition, intelligence is an information with some analysis applied. In the past, an information was the one which followed operations. The modern trend requires security service to produce some intelligence which will be capable to lead the operation. How these matters in the world of cyber security? Well, try to imagine a cyber system which depends on intelligence. That cyber system can be some computer set or an entire network. As it is known, computer systems are led by the set of rules or instructions. That set is better known as an algorithm. If we attempt to apply the concept of intelligence-driven security, we would notice that we have a system which is, in this case, an algorithm that is capable to adapt to or follow the information. As we know, the previous cyber systems had the algorithm leading the information, but today the set of rules is the one which is led by intelligence.

We will explain in the coming parts of the article how these can affect the future of cyber security. But, in total, yes. We are getting more intelligent.

Why Dynamic Encryption Matters?

As we see, the modern world is a very dynamic place. We are going very digital and the information are getting a normal part of our lives. Everything changes very fast and sometimes it’s quite challenging to follow all those changes. If our world is going dynamic, the logical question should be as follows: “Do we need the protection that will go dynamic as well?” The answer is simple – yes.

What do we use to secure our so valuable information. An encryption, indeed. So, what we need at this stage is a dynamic form of an encryption. It is well-known that modern encryption systems are based on very strong mathematics and can appear in a form of both – hardware and software. What is typical for many dynamic cryptographic systems is that they are based not only on logical circuits, but include memory elements as well. Digital science classifies these systems as sequential. The characteristic of sequential circuits is that they go from one logical state to another. Basically, they make a cycle. Imagine how these could be useful in terms of binary information permutation. For instance, a logical part of the circuit does the information transformation and a memory element is responsible for the information permutation. It is obvious that, in such a case, we are getting a constantly changing and quite smart system that can offer us a dynamic protection. In programming, these could be resolved using an adaptive algorithm.

At this phase, these would be all regarding dynamic cryptography. We should jump to more futuristic part of our story. Well, it’s not totally futuristic. People around the globe are working hard to realise this idea. So, let’s have a closer look at that problem.

So, How is the Future?

The future seems quite promising from this perspective. The main questions here would be: “How will we protect our digital systems from cyber attacks in the future? Will we need to react on every incident on our own or will we have some sort of software that will secure our valuable information?” The answer to these questions is simple. We will have a security software capable of protecting itself. Many studies have been done regarding this idea and current researchers and engineers are on search for this solution. In the coming period, we can expect that someone will produce that smart software which will be able to fight for itself and respond to incidents independently.

References:

[1] A. Omari, B. Al-Kasasbeh, R. Al-Qutaish and M. Muhairat, DEA-RTA: A Dynamic Encryption Algorithm for the Real-Time Applications, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, 2009
[2] H. Hoang Ngo, X. Wu, P. Dung Le, C. Wilson, and B. Srinivasan, Dynamic Key Cryptography and Applications, International Journal of Network Security, 2010