A design pattern for symmetric encryption

Abstract

Symmetric encryption is widely used to enforce data security and provide other cryptographic primitives. Despite significant research that has led to the development of sophisticated symmetric encryption algorithms, very little has been done to develop systematic frameworks that can support the creation of adaptable, application-specific encryption techniques with varying levels of security. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by proposing a new Circular Design Pattern (CDP) which serves as a template for generating Dynamic Symmetric Encryption Frameworks (DSEF). The layout of a DSEF remains the same but the underlying algorithms may vary during run time. We illustrate how the proposed CDP can be used to create new DSEF from the set of existing algorithms. We propose a modified version of conventional cryptosystem model to deploy the DSEF. We analyze the enhanced security level of any new symmetric encryption algorithm generated by the CDP. We also present a comparison of the proposed CDP with some existing design patterns that may be used for creating DSEF.