- published: 05 Jun 2013
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Cryptanalysis (from the Greek kryptós, "hidden", and analýein, "to loosen" or "to untie") is the art of defeating cryptographic security systems, and gaining access to the contents of encrypted messages, without being given the cryptographic key.
In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis also includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their physical implementation or software implementation.
Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced computerized schemes of the present. Methods for breaking modern cryptosystems usually involve solving carefully constructed problems in pure mathematics, the best-known being integer factorization.