7.5. Preparing for Cryptographic Attacks

The ultimate objective of an attack on a cryptographic system is to either decipher the messages or disrupt the network. Cryptographic systems can be susceptible to denial of service (DoS) attacks, which were explained in Chapter 2, "Identifying Potential Risks."

Specific attacks on cryptographic systems can be divided into three types:

Attacking the key

Key attacks are typically launched to discover the value of a key by attacking the key directly. The keys can be passwords, encrypted messages, or other key-based encryption information. An attacker might try to apply a series of words, commonly used passwords, and other randomly selected combinations to crack a password. A key attack involves trying ...

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