Investigation of Strength and Security of Pseudo Random Number Generators

Abstract

Security is a key factor in today’s fast communicating world. Many cryptographic algorithms are tested and put into use efficiently. Random numbers are used in diverse forms like nonces, secret key, initialization vector, etc. They find place in encryption, digital signature, hashing algorithms. A deterministic algorithms takes an intial seed value as input and produces pseudo random numbers with falsely induced randomness. This research work extensively surveys large set of state-of-the-art PRNGs and categorizes them based on methodology used to produce them. We compared their statistical results obtained from various statistical test tools like NIST SP 800-22, TestU01. Finally, security analyses of various PRNGs were done quantitatively for their key space, key sensitivity, entropy, speed of bit generation, linear complexity. At last, we concluded the results with some future directions for researchers to carry out their research in improving the PRNGs.