Zero-Share Key Management for Secure Communication Across a Channel

• Published in: Design and Analysis of Security Protocol for Communication pp. 95 - 108
• Main Authors: Mahalingam, P. R, Fasila, K. A
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated 2020; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: channel security; handshake mechanism; matrix cipher; random keys; Symmetric ciphers
• ISBN: 9781119555643; 1119555647
• DOI: 10.1002/9781119555759.ch4

Symmetric ciphers require transmission of a shared key over a seemingly insecure channel. In order to secure the channel, key transmission should be secured as much as possible. Here, we use the power of reversible matrix operations to implement key transmission in symmetric cryptosystems. The concept is based on reversible overlapping operations to add and remove layers of cipher on a plaintext. The advantage of this model is that the operations are independent of the key chosen, and do not require any components of the cipher system to be sent across the channel without protection. But this involves multiple transactions for sending each piece of information, and the same method can be implemented as a handshake. The keys at the host can be random, or based on the data to be sent across the channel. But at the same time handshakes can overload the channel if used over large data items. Hence, this method is adaptable for key transfers.