Why prime numbers are used in Diffie Hellman?

1 Answer. Prime numbers don’t break down into smaller factors, making cracking the code or hash much harder than using, say 12, which breaks down with /2 or /3 or /4 or /6. The prime number 7, is less than 12, but only has the factor of 7, so there are less attack vectors.

What problem does the Diffie Hellman key exchange solve?

The Diffie–Hellman (DH) Algorithm is a key-exchange protocol that enables two parties communicating over public channel to establish a mutual secret without it being transmitted over the Internet. DH enables the two to use a public key to encrypt and decrypt their conversation or data using symmetric cryptography.

What is a limitation weakness of Diffie Hellman key exchange?

The following are the limitations of Diffie-Hellman algorithm: Algorithm can be used only for symmetric key exchange. As there is no authentication involved, it is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack. As it is computationally intensive, it is expensive in terms of resources and CPU performance time.

What is Diffie-Hellman prime?

The Diffie–Hellman key exchange method allows two parties that have no prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a shared secret key over an insecure channel. This key can then be used to encrypt subsequent communications using a symmetric-key cipher.

What is Q in Diffie-Hellman?

To implement Diffie-Hellman, the two end users Alice and Bob, while communicating over a channel they know to be private, mutually agree on positive whole numbers p and q, such that p is a prime number and q is a generator of p.

How the Diffie Hellman key exchange protocol allows for the generation of a shared key?

The Diffie–Hellman key exchange method allows two parties that have no prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a shared secret key over an insecure channel. This key can then be used to encrypt subsequent communications using a symmetric-key cipher. It credits Hellman, Diffie, and Merkle as inventors.

How can the Diffie-Hellman technique be improved to prevent the man-in-the-middle attacks?

One way to protect Diffie-Hellman against the Man-in-the-Middle attack is to encrypt the Diffie-Hellman value with the other side’s public key.