A Comparative Study of Symmetric Key Algorithms

Security is the prime issue while transferring information across a network. Therefore, the concept of encryption and decryption of information was introduced. Cryptography is a technique of converting plain information into encrypted text. This is done so that only legitimate users can access the data being sent. Cryptography can be mainly classified into two: 1) Symmetric key cryptography: Encryption and decryption are done using the same keys, and 2) Asymmetric key cryptography: Encryption and decryption of data is executed using private and public key. The symmetric key algorithm can be further categorized into: 1) Stream cipher and, 2) Block cipher. This paper compares three widely used Rivest Cipher algorithms which belong to class of symmetric key cryptography based on various parameters. Algorithms RC2 and RC6 belong to stream cipher and RC4 belong to block cipher respectively.