Block ciphers constitute a major part of modern symmetric cryptography. A mathematical analysis is necessary to ensure the security of the cipher. In this thesis, I develop several new contributions for the analysis of block ciphers. I determine cryptographic properties of several special cryptographically interesting mappings like almost perfect nonlinear functions. I also give some new results both on the resistance of functions against differential-linear attacks as well as on the efficiency of implementation of certain block ciphers.<eng>
