Attack modelIn 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 (also known as ciphertext) 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. In cryptography, a sending party uses a cipher to encrypt (transform) a secret plaintext into a ciphertext, which is sent over an insecure communication channel to the receiving party.
SteganographySteganography (ˌstɛɡəˈnɒɡrəfi ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a , message, image, or video is concealed within another file, message, image, or video. The word steganography comes from Greek steganographia, which combines the words steganós (), meaning "covered or concealed", and -graphia () meaning "writing".
Frequency analysisIn cryptanalysis, frequency analysis (also known as counting letters) is the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters in a ciphertext. The method is used as an aid to breaking classical ciphers. Frequency analysis is based on the fact that, in any given stretch of written language, certain letters and combinations of letters occur with varying frequencies. Moreover, there is a characteristic distribution of letters that is roughly the same for almost all samples of that language.
Vigenère cipherThe Vigenère cipher (viʒnɛːʁ) is a method of encrypting alphabetic text where each letter of the plaintext is encoded with a different Caesar cipher, whose increment is determined by the corresponding letter of another text, the key. For example, if the plaintext is attacking tonight and the key is OCULORHINOLARINGOLOGY, then the first letter a of the plaintext is shifted by 14 positions in the alphabet (because the first letter O of the key is the 14th letter of the alphabet, counting from 0), yielding o; the second letter t is shifted by 2 (because the second letter C of the key means 2) yielding v; the third letter t is shifted by 20 (U) yielding n, with wrap-around; and so on; yielding the message ovnlqbpvt eoeqtnh.
