Snake oil (cryptography)

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In cryptography, snake oil is any cryptographic method or product considered to be bogus or fraudulent. The name derives from snake oil, one type of patent medicine widely available in 19th century United States.

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Distinguishing secure cryptography from insecure cryptography can be difficult from the viewpoint of a user. Many cryptographers, such as Bruce Schneier and Phil Zimmermann, undertake to educate the public in how secure cryptography is done, as well as highlighting the misleading marketing of some cryptographic products.

The Snake Oil FAQ describes itself as "a compilation of common habits of snake oil vendors. It cannot be the sole method of rating a security product, since there can be exceptions to most of these rules. [...] But if you're looking at something that exhibits several warning signs, you're probably dealing with snake oil." [1]

Some examples of snake oil cryptography techniques

This is not an exhaustive list of snake oil signs. A more thorough list is given in the references.

Secret system
Some encryption systems will claim to rely on a secret algorithm, technique, or device; this is categorized as security through obscurity. [2] Criticisms of this are twofold. First, a 19th century rule known as Kerckhoffs's principle, later formulated as Shannon's maxim, teaches that "the enemy knows the system" and the secrecy of a cryptosystem algorithm does not provide any advantage. Second, secret methods are not open to public peer review and cryptanalysis, so potential mistakes and insecurities can go unnoticed. [1]
Technobabble
Snake oil salespeople may use "technobabble" to sell their product since cryptography is a complicated subject. [2]
"Unbreakable"
Claims of a system or cryptographic method being "unbreakable" are always false (or true under some limited set of conditions), and are generally considered a sure sign of snake oil. [1]
"Military-grade"
There is no accepted standard or criterion for "military-grade" ciphers. [1]
One-time pads
One-time pads are a popular cryptographic method to invoke in advertising, because it is well known that one-time pads, when implemented correctly, are genuinely unbreakable. The problem comes in implementing one-time pads, which is rarely done correctly. Cryptographic systems that claim to be based on one-time pads are considered suspect, particularly if they do not describe how the one-time pad is implemented, or they describe a flawed implementation. [2]
Unsubstantiated "bit" claims
Cryptographic products are often accompanied with claims of using a high number of bits for encryption, apparently referring to the key length used. [2] However key lengths are not directly comparable between symmetric and asymmetric systems. [2] Furthermore, the details of implementation can render the system vulnerable. For example, in 2008 it was revealed that a number of hard drives sold with built-in "128-bit AES encryption" were actually using a simple and easily defeated "XOR" scheme. AES was only used to store the key, which was easy to recover without breaking AES. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advanced Encryption Standard</span> Standard for the encryption of electronic data

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael, is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data Encryption Standard</span> Early unclassified symmetric-key block cipher

The Data Encryption Standard is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cryptography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Schneier</span> American computer scientist

Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society as of November, 2013. He is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and The Tor Project; and an advisory board member of Electronic Privacy Information Center and VerifiedVoting.org. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography and is a squid enthusiast.

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the symmetric block cipher ratified as a standard by National Institute of Standards and Technology of the United States (NIST), was chosen using a process lasting from 1997 to 2000 that was markedly more open and transparent than its predecessor, the Data Encryption Standard (DES). This process won praise from the open cryptographic community, and helped to increase confidence in the security of the winning algorithm from those who were suspicious of backdoors in the predecessor, DES.

In cryptography, a block cipher mode of operation is an algorithm that uses a block cipher to provide information security such as confidentiality or authenticity. A block cipher by itself is only suitable for the secure cryptographic transformation of one fixed-length group of bits called a block. A mode of operation describes how to repeatedly apply a cipher's single-block operation to securely transform amounts of data larger than a block.

Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers to protect secrets, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, or perhaps simple mechanical aids. In the early 20th century, the invention of complex mechanical and electromechanical machines, such as the Enigma rotor machine, provided more sophisticated and efficient means of encryption; and the subsequent introduction of electronics and computing has allowed elaborate schemes of still greater complexity, most of which are entirely unsuited to pen and paper.

MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm.

In cryptography, the eXtended Sparse Linearization (XSL) attack is a method of cryptanalysis for block ciphers. The attack was first published in 2002 by researchers Nicolas Courtois and Josef Pieprzyk. It has caused some controversy as it was claimed to have the potential to break the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher, also known as Rijndael, faster than an exhaustive search. Since AES is already widely used in commerce and government for the transmission of secret information, finding a technique that can shorten the amount of time it takes to retrieve the secret message without having the key could have wide implications.

Multiple encryption is the process of encrypting an already encrypted message one or more times, either using the same or a different algorithm. It is also known as cascade encryption, cascade ciphering, multiple encryption, and superencipherment. Superencryption refers to the outer-level encryption of a multiple encryption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of cryptographic keys</span>

This glossary lists types of keys as the term is used in cryptography, as opposed to door locks. Terms that are primarily used by the U.S. National Security Agency are marked (NSA). For classification of keys according to their usage see cryptographic key types.

Strong cryptography or cryptographically strong are general terms used to designate the cryptographic algorithms that, when used correctly, provide a very high level of protection against any eavesdropper, including the government agencies. There is no precise definition of the boundary line between the strong cryptography and (breakable) weak cryptography, as this border constantly shifts due to improvements in hardware and cryptanalysis techniques. These improvements eventually place the capabilities once available only to the NSA within the reach of a skilled individual, so in practice there are only two levels of cryptographic security, "cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files".

In cryptanalysis, attack models or attack types are a classification of cryptographic attacks specifying the kind of access a cryptanalyst has to a system under attack when attempting to "break" an encrypted message generated by the system. The greater the access the cryptanalyst has to the system, the more useful information they can get to utilize for breaking the cypher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptography</span> Practice and study of secure communication techniques

Cryptography, or cryptology, is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to cryptography:

There are various implementations of the Advanced Encryption Standard, also known as Rijndael.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twofish</span> Block cipher

In cryptography, Twofish is a symmetric key block cipher with a block size of 128 bits and key sizes up to 256 bits. It was one of the five finalists of the Advanced Encryption Standard contest, but it was not selected for standardization. Twofish is related to the earlier block cipher Blowfish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullrun (decryption program)</span> Code name of a decryption program run by the NSA

Bullrun is a clandestine, highly classified program to crack encryption of online communications and data, which is run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). The British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has a similar program codenamed Edgehill. According to the Bullrun classification guide published by The Guardian, the program uses multiple methods including computer network exploitation, interdiction, industry relationships, collaboration with other intelligence community entities, and advanced mathematical techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crypto Wars</span> Attempts to limit access to strong cryptography

Attempts, unofficially dubbed the "Crypto Wars", have been made by the United States (US) and allied governments to limit the public's and foreign nations' access to cryptography strong enough to thwart decryption by national intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Matt, Curtin. "Snake Oil Warning Signs: Encryption Software to Avoid". Archived from the original on 14 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Schneier, Bruce (15 February 1999). "Snake Oil". Crypto-Gram.
  3. ↑ Christiane Rütten (18 February 2008). "Enclosed, but not encrypted". The H Security: News and Features.
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