ANALYSIS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF RC4 ALGORITHM FOR STREAM CIPHERS

Abstract

Since its public availability in 1994, RC4 has been extensively used for data – security measures. The specialty of RC4 lies within its formation – it is very easy to implement compared to other stream ciphers while providing excellent security. However, extensive research on the matter for more than two decades has exposed many frailties that lie within RC4 and how these frailties can be used to breach RC4. This has led to many modifications of the cipher along with the creation of various variants too. This dissertation focuses on analyzing the best of the heaps of research that has been done on RC4 since its birth and also to look into its computational efficiency compared to more modern versions of the cipher.