An Overview of Encryption?
July 10, 2008 by Antivirus Ware.com - Download Norton Antivirus software instantly!Millions of transactions involving the exchange of personal information occur every day, bot online and offline. When a person is online, they are hopeful that their personal information is safe and secure when they are involved in any form of transaction. When data is encrypted, the information is made secure and can be exchange safely. Once it reaches its destination, it is deciphered or “decrypted.”
What exactly is “encryption?”
When data is encoded for the purpose of protecting it from the eyes of an unauthorized user, the process is known as encryption. The data first passes through algorithms and is then converted into what is called “cyphertext.” This cyphertext is data that has been encrypted to protect the information from unauthorized access.
The use of codes or “keys” provided by the user is utilized to encrypt the data and results in the encryption being difficult to “crack” or decipher by an unauthorized person or subversive activity. Typically, encryption is performed using one or two systems, namely a symmetric-key or public-key encryption. The public-key system is also referred to as asymmetric.
Normally, in the public-key system, there are two keys — one public, one private. The public key is usually transmitted from a secure computer to another one that wants to engage in secure communication. The data gets sent from the client’s computer only after it has been encoded. Once it reaches its destination, the computer uses both the private and the public key to decode the data.
In the symmetric-key system, a secret code or key is used to encrypt the data and then the code and information are passed on to another computer separately. The computer then uses the secret code to decipher the data.
