Blowfish Cipher, a symmetric block cipher, manages the trade-off between security and speed through its unique design. It uses variable-length keys up to 448 bits, providing robust security against brute-force attacks. The algorithm divides plaintext into blocks of 64 bits each, processed in two halves with multiple rounds of substitution and permutation, enhancing security.
The key feature contributing to Blowfish’s speed is its use of pre-computed Substitution-boxes (S-boxes) that are generated during key initialization. This allows for rapid data encryption and decryption as these S-boxes only need to be computed once. Furthermore, Blowfish operates on large chunks of data at once, which increases throughput and efficiency.
However, it’s worth noting that while Blowfish excels in applications requiring fast, secure encryption of small amounts of data, it may not be suitable for larger datasets due to potential vulnerabilities related to its short block size.
