Plenary Talk I: Modified AES Algorithm for Strong Encryption & Enhanced Security

Summary form only given, as follows. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. Networks today an inherent part of all defence or military organisations. Any loss of data from defence networks directly impacts the national security. Hence, this data has to be protected using strong encryption techniques. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), is a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for symmetric cryptography since 2001 and is the most popular encryption standard for securing data. However, the AES is known to be prone to brute force attacks and other forms of cryptanalysis. This address presents a conceptual model of modified AES algorithm, which will make it more complex, less prone to brute force attacks, tweak the algorithm so it is not known to attackers, and introduce a near true randomness to make it stronger and ideal for use in defence networks.