ATM Pin encryption using 3DES
Introduction Most modern ATM’s use a Triple Des algorithm to encrypt the pin and send it to a host server for processing. Once the host system receives the pin, it does a translation of the pin from one encryption key to another, and sends it to a bank. In this post I will attempt to explain the process and how it is done in the real world. Overview of the Triple Data Encryption Standard What we all call Triple DES is EDE (encrypt, decrypt, encrypt). The way that it works is that you take three 56-bit keys, and encrypt with K1, decrypt with K2 and encrypt with K3. There are two-key and three-key versions. Think of the two-key version as merely one where K1=K3. Note that if K1=K2=K3, then Triple DES is really Single DES. Triple DES was created back when DES was getting a bit weaker than people were comfortable with. As a result, they wanted an easy way to get more strength. In a system dependent on DES, making a composite function out of multiple DESes is likely to be easier th