Enhancing Data Security with RSA-SHA 256: Mitigating Timing Attacks

This work considered the improvement of the RSA cryptosystem using a Secure Hash Algorithm, SHA-256, in its attempt to forestall attacks, more so against timing attacks. RSA is one of the most used asymmetric encryption methods, and with computational power ever increasing these days and new complex methods of attack ever emerging, this method is under severe threat. It also pointed out some intrinsic weaknesses in RSA, including vulnerability to side-channel attacks and deterministic encryption that could result in key exposure via timing variations. In this work, SHA-256 is used because it is a very sound hashing algorithm that can enhance the randomness of the produced ciphertext against cryptographic attacks. This improvement is thus proposed to reduce the execution time of RSA operations, which can hide timing information that could be used in attacks. Efficiency with respect to such an integration is studied through controlled experiments that assess timing behaviors and search for vulnerabilities. The results show that this combined approach, while actually reinforcing the security in RSA against timing attacks, has an even broader implication with regard to the importance of implementation details in cryptographic algorithms. The research contributes towards the constant dialogue in improving data security within cryptographic systems, putting forward a framework by which future studies can better resilient encryption methodologies.