Efficient File Encryption for Cloud Computing using a Quantum Random Number Generator

This research studies the high-speed cloud storage network (HSCSN) components for efficient data transmission. Data is being generated and exchanged in HSCSN at an unprecedented pace in today’s digital landscape. Using high-speed components ensures data can be transmitted quickly and reliably, minimizing latency and improving overall network performance. However, the security of personal data is a significant concern as information flows over the internet. A breach of data security can result in unauthorized access to sensitive information. HSCSN uses a cryptosystem to ensure data security between its component nodes. The cryptosystem has three building blocks: Key-schedule algorithm (KSA), Encryption, and Decryption. The randomness and optimization of the KSA components that generate the key for the other two blocks are directly related to data security and lead to security enhancement. This study reviews literature to find a gap in research, including that on cryptosystems for HSCSN, attacks on cryptosystems, different random number generators (RNGs), RNG-based cryptosystems, cryptographic properties, the KSA, and the dynamic S-box (a component of the KSA) of the cryptosystems. It focuses on creating CryptoQNRG, a new framework for KSA’s cryptographic strength evaluation. Tests are used to explore cryptographic properties such as unpredictability, balance of bits, correlation, confusion, and diffusion in the subkeys generated by the RNG-based KSA. This research firstly evaluates the most common KSAs with different block ciphers and a significant outcome of the proposed framework is the distinction between strong and weak RNG-based KSAs. Secondly it proposes the QuantumGS-box, a dynamic substitution box (S-box) for high-speed cloud-based storage encryption generated by a genetic algorithm and a quantum RNG. The proposed work generates the S-box values dynamically and by bit-shuffling with a genetic algorithm. An experimental evaluation of the proposed S-box method assesses several cryptographic criteria, including bit-independence criteria, speed, nonlinearity, differential and linear approximation probabilities, strict avalanche criteria, and balanced output. The results demonstrate that the QuantumGS-box adheres to the cryptography properties, enhancing robustness. The proposed S-box is resilient to differential and linear cryptoanalysis and assures nonlinearity. The characteristics of the proposed S-box are compared with recent S-boxes to validate its performance. Furthermore, the new dynamic S-box is balanced and generated at speed. These characteristics indicate that the designed S-box is a promising candidate for cloud-based storage encryption applications.