FOX Algorithm Implementation: a hardware design approach

Encryption algorithms are becoming more necessary to ensure data is securely transmitted over insecure communication channels. FOX is a recently developed algorithm and its structure is based on the already proven IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) cipher. FOX is a symmetric (private key) block cipher. Its top-level structure uses the Lai-Massey scheme and the round functions used in the scheme are substitution permutation networks (SPN). Its flexibility lies in the fact that it can be efficiently implemented in hardware and software. We report some of the first results of implementing the cipher on an FPGA.