A Comparative Analysis of Different LFSR-Based Ciphers and Parallel Computing Platforms for Development of Generic Cipher Compatible on both Hardware and Software Platforms

Pseudorandom numbers are at the core of any network security application. Pseudorandom numbers find its application in the network security domain in key generation, re-keying, authentication, smart-phone security, etc. These random numbers are produced through PRNG (Pseudorandom Number Generator). Hence, if there is a flaw or the PRNG produces predictable sets of random numbers, then the entire application would be prone to attacks. Therefore, development of a generic framework for generating strong sets of pseudorandom numbers is proposed. Hardware implementation for GSM stream cipher has already been implemented, under a particular segment of mobile communication. The project advanced into many dimensions like vulnerability testing, protocol designing, implementation in both software and hardware and evaluating. The proposal aims to build an in-general framework and a unified model for enhanced security specifically for LFSR (Linear-feedback shift register)-based stream ciphers. Hence, a thorough study on already existing LFSR-based ciphers is done. This study aims to extract out the behaviour of different ciphers under different application domains. As pseudorandom numbers are used in both software (stream ciphers, protocol design) as well as hardware (wireless devices, smart phones) areas of security, the generic model proposed is aimed at using a co-simulation of both hardware and software. For software development of the cipher, a parallel computing environment has been chosen because in today’s computing trends, multi-core processors are superseding the sequential ones; hence, the basic force for growth of processor is to increase parallelism rather than increasing the clock rate. The paper thus presents the CSPRNG (Cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator) model based on hardware and software co-simulations, using a generic approach.