Vulnerability to chosen-plaintext attack of optoelectronic information encryption with phase-shifting interferometry

Area of Science:

• Optics
• Cryptography
• Information Security

Background:

• Phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) is utilized in optical cryptosystems.
• While PSI effectively records ciphertext, its contribution to overall system security is minimal.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the security vulnerabilities of optical cryptosystems employing PSI.
• To propose and validate a chosen-plaintext attack against these systems.

Main Methods:

• Cryptanalysis of PSI-based optical cryptosystems under simplified conditions.
• Development of a chosen-plaintext attack utilizing an impulse function as known plaintext.
• Computer simulations to verify the attack's effectiveness.

Main Results:

• Identified that cryptanalysis requires cracking only two equivalent decryption keys, not the original phase and geometric keys.
• Demonstrated that a chosen-plaintext attack can successfully recover any plaintext from its ciphertext.
• Validated the proposed attack method through rigorous computer simulations.

Conclusions:

• Optical cryptosystems based on PSI possess significant security weaknesses.
• The proposed cryptanalysis and attack methods pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of PSI-based optical cryptosystems.