Split-n-Swap: A New Modification of the Twofish Block Cipher Algorithm

Abstract

Securing digital data from unauthorized access throughout its entire lifecycle has been always a critical concern. A robust data security system should protect the information assets of any organization against cybercriminal activities. The Twofish algorithm is one of the well-known symmetric key block cipher cryptographic algorithms and has been known for its rapid convergence. But when it comes to security, it is not the preferred cryptographic algorithm to use compared to other algorithms that have shown better security. Many applications and social platforms have adopted other symmetric key block cipher cryptographic algorithms such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm to construct their main security wall. In this paper, a new modification for the original Twofish algorithm is proposed to strengthen its security and to take advantage of its fast convergence. The new algorithm has been named Split-n-Swap (SnS). Performance analysis of the new modification algorithm has been performed using different measurement metrics. The experimental results show that the complexity of the SnS algorithm exceeds that of the original Twofish algorithm while maintaining reasonable values for encryption and decryption times as well as memory utilization. A detailed analysis is given with the strength and limitation aspects of the proposed algorithm.