Skip to main content
Log in

Historical notes on Russian cryptography

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article is devoted to the main milestones in the development of encryption techniques and mathematical methods of cryptography in Russia from the period of ancient Russia up to the nowadays. We break down the history of Russian cryptography into several periods and highlight the periods of cryptography development, analyze the most notable achievements and summarize the main results and applications of each period. The review of scientific research and standardization of cryptography in modern Russia is given. The progress of related areas is briefly analyzed: steganography and protection against falsification of documents.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Babash, A.V., Baranova, E.K., Larin, D.A.: History of Information Protection in Russia, p. 736. Publisher Center EAOI, Moscow (2012). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Larin, D.A.: Cryptographic Service of Russia. Essays on History, p. 384. Helios-ARV, Moscow (2017). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Nikonov, V., Stolpakov, B.: Historical Evidence of the Beginning and Development of Russian Cryptography (XVI–XVII Centuries), p. 254. Media Group “Avangard,” Moscow (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Tokareva, N.N.: On the history of cryptography in Russia. Prikl. Diskretn. Mat. 4(18), 82–107 (2012). (in Russian)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Babash, A.V., et al.: On the development of cryptography in the XIX century. In: Information Protection, No. 5 (2003) (in Russian)

  6. Astrakhan, V.I., Gusev, V.V.: Formation and development of government communications in Russia, 1996 (in Russian)

  7. Zapechnikov, S., Tolstoy, A., Nagibin, S.: History of cryptography in syllabus on information security training. In: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol. 453, pp. 146–157 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18500-2_13

  8. Soboleva, T.A.: The History of Encryption in Russia, p. 511. Olma-Press-Obrazovaniye, Moscow (2002). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Speransky, M.N.: The Secret Writing in the South Slavic and Russian Monuments of Writing, 2nd edn. Book House “Librocom,” Moscow (2011). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Shchepkin, V.N., Nauka, M.: Russian paleography, p. 225 (1967) (in Russian)

  11. Shamin, S.M.: Unknown cryptographic alphabet from the archive of the order of secret affairs. Ancient Russia. In: Questions of Medieval Studies, no. 2 (40), pp. 103–106 (2010) (in Russian)

  12. Zapechnikov, S.: From the history of cryptography: cryptography as a phenomenon of the Ancient Russian literary language (XII–XVII centuries). Inf. Technol. Secur. 18(2), 116–123 (2011). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Zapechnikov, S.: From the history of cryptography: document protection, cryptography and secret communications in Byzantium (IV–XV centuries). Inf. Technol. Secur. 19(2), 49–61 (2012). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Zapechnikov, S.: From the history of cryptography: Leonhard Euler’s contribution to the formation of the mathematical foundations of modern cryptology. Bull. Russian State Univ. Ser. Doc. Arch. Stud. Comput. Sci. Inf. Prot. Inf. Secur. 14(94), 29–52 (2012). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Nikonov, V., Stolpakov, B.: Historical evidence of the beginning and development of Russian cryptography (XVI–XVII centuries) (2016)

  16. Tokareva, N.N.: On the history of cryptography in Russia. Prikl. Diskretn. Mat. 4(18), 82–107 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Babash, A.V., Baranova, E.K., Larin, D.A.: History of information protection in Russia (2012) (in Russian)

  18. Soboleva, T.A.: The history of encryption in Russia (2002) (in Russian)

  19. Larin, D.A.: Cryptographic service of Russia. In: Essays on History (2017) (in Russian)

  20. Kahn, D.: The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet. Simon and Schuster, New York (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  21. The encryption business of the Soviet Union. Part 1. Military Review (2018)

  22. Babash, A.V., et al.: On the development of cryptography in the XIX century. Information Protection, No. 5, 2003.

  23. Astrakhan, V.I., Gusev, V.V.: Formation and development of government communications in Russia (1996)

  24. Encryption machines of the USSR 1931–1991. (Review) 18.11.2020 (Section 9). Prisma. The army and the military-industrial complex. http://prizmablog.ru/

  25. Schneier, B.: Applied Cryptography. Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C. Wiley, London (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Poschmann, A., Ling, S., Wang, H.: 256 bit standardized crypto for 650 GE—GOST revisited. In: Mangard, S., Standaert, FX. (eds.) Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, CHES 2010. CHES 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 6225. Springer, Berlin (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15031-9_15

  27. Courtois, N.T.: Security evaluation of GOST 28147-89 in view of international standardisation. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2011/211 (2011). http://eprint.iacr.org/

  28. Dinur, I., Dunkelman, O., Shamir, A.: Improved attacks on full GOST. In: Canteaut, A. (eds.) Fast Software Encryption. FSE 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7549. Springer, Berlin (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34047-5_2

  29. Moldovyan, A.A., Moldovyan, N.A.: Flexible algorithms for information security in automated control systems. Autom. Telemech. 8, 166–176 (1998). (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Gut, N.D., Moldovyan, A.A., Moldovyan, N.A.: Flexible hardware-oriented ciphers based on controlled adders. In: Rroceedings of RusCrypto-1999 (1999)

  31. Moldovyan, A.A., Moldovyan, N.A. High-speed ciphers of a new generation. In: Rroceedings of RusCrypto-1999 (1999) (in Russian)

  32. Alekseev, L.A., Alekseev, L.E.: Transformation of information in the SPECTRUM-Z system. In: Proceedings of RusCrypto-1999 (1999) (in Russian)

  33. Volchkov, A., De-Monderik, N.Y., Lebedev, A.N.: Algorithm WICKER-98. In: Proceedings of RusCrypto-1999 (1999) (in Russian)

  34. Abdrakhmanov, R.G., Zhukov, A.E.: Substitution-permutation ciphers. In: Proceedings of RusCrypto-2000 (2000) (in Russian). https://www.ruscrypto.ru/accociation/archive/rc2000.html

  35. GOST R 34.12-2015: Information technology. In: Cryptographic Data Protection. Block Ciphers (2015) (in Russian)

  36. GOST R 34.13-2015: Information technology. In: Cryptographic Data Security. Block Ciphers Operation Modes (2015) (in Russian)

  37. Komarova, A.V., Menschikov, A.A., Korobeinikov, A.G.: Analisys abd comparison of digital signature algorithms GOST R 34.10-94, GOST R 34.10-2012. In: Cybersecurity Questions, No. 1(19) (2017) (in Russian)

  38. GOST R 34.10-2012: Information technology. cryptographic data security. generation and verification processes of electronic digital signature (2012) (in Russian)

  39. GOST R 34.11-2012: Information technology. Cryptographic data security. Hash-function (2013) (in Russian)

  40. Stolbunov, A., Rostovtcev, A.: New cryptosystems against quantum attacks. In: Proceedings of Science Week (2004) (in Russian)

  41. Stolbunov, A., Rostovtcev, A.: Public-key cryptosystem based on isogenies. In: IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive (2006) (in Russian)

  42. Sukhinin, B.M.: Development and research of high-speed generators of pseudorandom uniformly distributed binary sequences based on cellular automata: dissertation ... candidate of Technical Sciences: 05.13.19—Moscow, 2011, p. 224. Russian State Library, 61 11–5/3554 (in Russian)

  43. Dmukh, A.A., Dygin, D.M., Marshalko, G.B.: A lightweight-friendly modification of GOST block cipher. Math. Asp. Cryptogr. 5(2), 47–55 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (state task Project No. FSWU-2023-0031).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Epishkina.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Epishkina, A., Zapechnikov, S. & Belozubova, A. Historical notes on Russian cryptography. J Comput Virol Hack Tech 20, 277–293 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11416-023-00481-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11416-023-00481-2

Keywords

Navigation