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Bulk Encryption Platform

Home Services Case studies Bulk Encryption Platform
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Verticals: Networks & Telecom
Technologies: Embedded Software,Embedded Hardware
Tags: ProASIC Plus FPGA, Atmel ARM9, Linux, SoC, E1, E2, E3, V.35, V.24, STM-1, STM-4, Optical Interfaces, Custom Cipher Algorithm, Provable Security, NP Hard Problems,

OBJECTIVE

To design a customized secure communication solution (Bulk Encryption Unit - BEU) for government, military and civil applications. BEU is a holistic solution which includes cryptographic algorithm design, key management, session management, access control and tamper proofing to address customers requirement.

PROJECT DESIGN

Bulk Encryption Unit (BEU) refers to the simultaneous encryption of all channels of a multi-channel telecommunications trunk. The encryption is traffic-independent (voice, data or broadband) and takes place at the physical layer of a single communication link only (Link-by-link encryption). The product was developed from scratch at KritiKal, right from specifications to the field trials and certifications. A key milestone was developing the cipher to be used in the product in-house. There are currently no standard stream ciphers except RC4. One option was to modify block ciphers into stream ciphers. We decided to develop our own cipher. The cipher design was based on the hardness of an NP-hard problem. Starting from there, we developed a cipher and prove its mathematical properties. The mathematical proofs were verified by professors at Computer Science department at IIT Delhi.

 

Bulk Encryption Plateform

KRITIKAL'S ROLE

KritiKal designed and developed a FPGA + ARM9 SoC based solution running on Linux which had following features:

  • Compact, flexible and modular architecture.
  • Supports 40 Mbps full duplex operation on protocols like V.35, E1, E2, E3, V.24.
  • Supports 622 Mbps full duplex operation for STM-1, STM-4.
  • Easy to use LCD based user interface and keyboard.
  • Field upgradeable.
  • Tamper resistant and self destruct feature upon threat perception, locally or remotely over the transmission link.
  • Persistent sessions. Communication resumes automatically after power up.
  • Power can be pulled at any time, without damage to the system.
CHALLENGES
  • To develop mathematically proven strong stream cipher and make it resistant to man-in-the-middle attack: substantial efforts were made in going through various cryptography related research papers and algorithms to arrive at the final solution cipher and then the algorithm was vetted by eminent faculty members of IIT-Delhi.
  • Does not hog channel bandwidth: Control channel was suitably designed to exchange information optimally to ensure continuous information overheads are minimal.
  • Operates in a very high BER of up to 10^-3
  • Key Disbursement: Keys were distributed among the field units using smart card which was suitably encrypted and secure.
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