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.
