The lecture aims at a deeper understanding of cryptographic algorithms, especially which design criteria have to be considered for the development of secure encryption algorithms. For that purpose we will get to know and evaluate different cryptanalytic methods for symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption techniques – e.g. linear and differential cryptanalysis on block ciphers, correlation attacks on stream ciphers and algorithms to solve the factorization problem and the discrete logarithm problem. Weaknesses in the implementation, e.g. to exploit side-channel attacks, will be discussed only peripherally.