Sania Jawaid¹, Anam Saiyeda^2,, Naba Suroor³

Secure communication is a necessity in every field. Network security aims at providing a safe and unassailable correspondence by using cryptography. In cryptography data is sent in an encrypted form to ensure security. Encryption requires impregnable keys. A key is used to encrypt or decrypt data and should be unpredictable and not easily breakable. In this paper we use genetic algorithms which is a soft computing technique for key generation, the process used for generating keys. The keys obtained are tested for randomness by using the autocorrelation test. The final key is selected based on the autocorrelation value and thus it is as random and unique as possible. Java Technology is used to implement the proposed technique and analysis of the observations gives satisfactory results. The final key obtained can further be used to perform encryption. In our paper for verification and validation Data Encryption Standard cipher program is used. It can also be used in in-house ERP System to ensure the stability of important data. It will help in obtaining good standards of security in cryptography.

genetic algorithms, data encryption standard, cryptography, key generation