Abstract
In this paper, we analyze the security of J. and R.M. Campello de Souza's private-key encryption scheme, which is based on the product codes with the capability of correcting a special type of structured errors. According to our cryptanalysis, we show that J. and R.M. Campello de Souza's scheme is insecure against chosen-plaintext attacks. A secure modified scheme is consequently proposed to enhance the security. In addition, we propose a modification of the proposed scheme which provides joint error correction and encryption. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.