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Cryptography

Cryptography is the science of securing communication and information through the use of codes, so only the intended recipient can understand the content. It has a long history, from ancient civilizations using simple ciphers to modern encryption techniques.

Encryption: Converts plaintext (readable data) into ciphertext (scrambled data) using an algorithm and a key.

Decryption: Reverses encryption, converting ciphertext back to plaintext using a key.

Symmetric Cryptography: Uses the same key for both encryption and decryption. It's fast but requires secure key exchange.

Asymmetric Cryptography: Uses a pair of keys—a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. This enhances security for key exchange.

Hash Functions: Convert data into a fixed-size hash value, used for verifying data integrity without exposing the original data.

Cryptography ensures confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation in digital communications, making it essential for secure online interactions

Real-World Usage:
The Snowflake Data Breach in April 2024 compromised accounts stored on Snowflake's cloud platform due to inadequate security measures, such as missing multifactor authentication (MFA). High-profile victims included AT&T (70 million customers affected), Ticketmaster (560 million records stolen), and Santander Bank.

Attack Details:
Exploitation: Attackers linked to the Scattered Spider group exploited vulnerabilities in Snowflake's security to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Data Theft: The attackers stole terabytes of sensitive data, including personal information, financial records, and login credentials.

Impact:
The breach resulted in significant financial losses and exposed the personal information of millions of individuals. It also highlighted the importance of robust security measures, such as MFA, to protect sensitive data stored in cloud environments.

Cryptography Tools
  • Base65536 - Unicode's answer to Base64.
  • Braille Translator - Translate from braille to text.
  • Ciphey - Tool to automatically decrypt encryptions without knowing the key or cipher, decode encodings, and crack hashes.
  • CyberChef - A web app for encryption, encoding, compression and data analysis.
  • Cryptii - Modular conversion, encoding and encryption online.
  • dCode.fr - Solvers for Crypto, Maths and Encodings online.
  • Decodify - Detect and decode encoded strings, recursively.
  • Enigma Machine - Universal Enigma Machine Simulator.
  • FeatherDuster - An automated, modular cryptanalysis tool.
  • Galois - A fast galois field arithmetic library/toolkit.
  • HashExtender - Tool for performing hash length extension attacks.
  • Hash-identifier - Simple hash algorithm identifier.
  • padding-oracle-attacker - CLI tool and library to execute padding oracle attacks easily.
  • PadBuster - Automated script for performing Padding Oracle attacks.
  • PEMCrack - Cracks SSL PEM files that hold encrypted private keys. Brute forces or dictionary cracks.
  • PKCrack - PkZip encryption cracker.
  • Polybius Square Cipher - Table that allows someone to translate letters into numbers.
  • Quipqiup - Automated cryptogram solver.
  • RsaCtfTool - RSA multi attacks tool.
  • RSATool - Tool to to calculate RSA and RSA-CRT parameter.
  • Rumkin Cipher Tools - Collection of ciphhers/encoders tools.
  • Vigenere Solver - Online tool that breaks Vigenère ciphers without knowing the key.
  • XOR Cracker - Online XOR decryption tool able to guess the key length and the cipher key to decrypt any file.
  • XORTool - A tool to analyze multi-byte xor cipher.
  • yagu - Automated integer factorization.
  • Crackstation - Hash cracker (database).
  • Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences - OEIS: The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
Cryptography Learning Resources