Self-Synchronized Encryption for Physical Layer in Gigabit Ethernet Optical Links

Abstract

In this work a new self-synchronized symmetric encryption solution for high speed communication systems necessary to preserve the format of the plaintext is proposed, developed and tested. This new encryption mechanism is based on the block cipher operation mode called PSCFB (Pipelined Statistical Cipher Feedback) and the modulo operation. The confidentiality of this mode is analyzed in terms of its IND-CPA (Indistinguishability under Chosen-Plaintext Attack) advantage, concluding that it can be considered secure in the same way as traditional modes are. The encryption system has been integrated in the physical layer of a 1000Base-X Gigabit Ethernet Interface, where the 8b/10b symbol flow is encrypted at line rate. Moreover, an implementation of the proposed system has been carried out in an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) device. Finally, an encrypted optical link has been tested with real Ethernet frames, getting maximum throughput and protecting the data traffic from passive eavesdroppers.

Keywords

• Gigabit Ethernet
• physical coding sublayer
• encryption
• stream cipher
• PSCFB (pipeline statistic cipher feedback)
• FPE (format preserving encryption)