Enigma was a portable cipher machine producing a polyalphabetic substitution cipher. It had up to 5 rotor scramblers. Many versions included many sets of plugboard connections, which allowed a further swap of a letter with another once encrypted. Its inventor Arthur Scherbius originally developed it for commercial use in the 1920s. He later sold it to German Armed Forces since the early 1930s. The military Enigma equipped with 5 rotors and 10 plugboard connections has 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 possible combinations. Good operating procedures, properly enforced, would have made Enigma unbreakable in the 1940s. History teaches us that this was not the case. Many historians agree that the Allies won WW2 thanks to the deciphering of Enigma. What happened then? A mix structural weaknesses and poor handling made Enigma vulnerable. Let’s find out more below! Enigma: structural weaknesses Was Enigma unbreakable? No, it was not in fact. The security of Enigma ciphers did have fundamental weaknesses that proved helpful to Allied cryptanalysts. To start off our analysis, you should know that Polish criptoanalysts designed a special system, “the bombe”, in attempting to break the cipher. The British would later develop an augmented version of the bombe. Let’s turn now to the actual weaknesses of Enigma. First, Enigma could not encrypt a letter to itself as a result of the structural architecture of the machine. This gave cryptanalysts a key hint. They knew they could ignore a number of sequences. Secondly, the plugboard connections were reciprocal, so that if A was plugged to N, then N likewise became A.  Because of this property,  British cryptoanalysts  introduced a diagonal board  into the bombe substantially reducing the number of incorrect rotor settings that the bombes found. The augmented version of the bombe, also known as the Turing machine, was the first computing machine in history. Alun Turing designed it to find the correct initial setting of the rotors. Knowing the initial setting would have allowed Turing and his team the decryption of Enigma. Finally, the notches in the alphabet rings of rotors I to V laid in different positions, which helped cryptanalysts to work out the wheel order by observing when the right-hand rotor turned over the middle one. Thus, thanks to these flows Polish, French and British governments started working on decrypting Enigma since the 1930s. Britain was able to decrypt a substantial number of German communications since the summer of 1941. The human error in handling Enigma The technologies Allied powers possessed did not allow the full exploits of those structural weaknesses, however. The main vulnerabilities of Enigma came from poor handling and lack of safe procedures. First of all, the choice of the message was not totally random – Germans sometimes opted for obvious keys (three successive letters). Also, the Germans made the mistake of repeating the same key. This feature made Enigma a vulnerable pseudo-Vernam cipher, where the key is repeated more than once. The security measures taken by those responsible for creating the notebooks with the daily key settings were lacking, too. They did not allow any rotor to repeat the position from one day to another. In addition, sometimes the Allies managed to obtain a notebook of key settings, which gave the analysts a boost from which to continue advancing in solving the Enigma. Conclusion: ciphers and proper procedures In conclusion, the mixture of inherent and human error greatly reduced the total number of possible configurations and provided shortcuts to cryptanalysts.  The entire Allied deciphering of the Enigma codes can be attributed to human error and/or human carelessness. Built-it weaknesses were pretty limited and were not sufficient to allow pattern spotting with the technology the Allies could rely on.

Will the curriculum of Italian pupils soon include hacking? There is a chance. Italy is organizing its first CyberOlimpics, Olicyber, organised by CINI and TeamItaly, the Italian white hackers team. The organizing committee means to convey the value and the culture of cybersecurity among younger generations. Hopefully, this initiative will promote the selection and the  training of future and talented cybersecurity professionals. Olicyber: what is it? Disciplines of the Cyber Olympics include Web Security, Cryptography, Sofware Security, and Network Security. These special athletes are the pupils of Italian high-school. An additional merit of OliCyber is that the organizers will select the participants without discrimination, especially ensuring gender equality. Participation is conditional on the membership of the Olicyber network by educative institutions. Teachers may enlist their schools swiftly and in a short time as the organizers have set up a simple application process. Their goal is to ensure maximum participation. Participating to Olicyber would benefit teachers, too. Indeed, Olicyber offers them professional updating packages to keep up with the state of the art on cybersecurity. OliCyber brought teachers back to school, then. If curious, you may have a look on their website here. The importance of cyber-education What are the reasons of this attention to the youth? Cybersecurity education has been becoming a leading and key theme in Italian policy. Olicyber means to scale up the awareness of cybersecurity among youngsters. Then, Olicyber is part of bigger and more ambitious project. Italy is investing a lot of money to implement a swift and a painless digital transformation plan. The successful implementation of the plan – observers say – may enhance Italy’s chances of achieving economic growth in the long term. Why? The world has been turning digital and the process of digitalization has revolutionized the economy. However, the main focus of Italian policymakers is purely educative. Initiatives like Olicyber aims at making the young cyber-aware. Nobody can ignore that the digital domain as a key part of our life.  Its ultimate objective is thus to prepare the youth in this sense. Conclusion: Olicyber and the future of Italian cybersecurity In conclusion, Pierre de Coubertin, the father of modern Olympics, meant to stress the positive role of the Olympic Games in the future of individual as moral and social advancement. Then, Olicyber deals with advancement not only in a pure technical sense. Their purpose is making the community a better and a more secure place. Indeed, initiatives like Olicyber are a blessing. They lead to change and innovation. They also funnel talent and stimulate curiosity, while developing skills welcomed by the labour market. Such competitions are flowering. Thus, policymakers worldwide should encourage them to provide society with advanced knowledge on cyber threats and defense.