Encryption
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Encryption
Encryption refers to the process of scrambling data in such a way that only authorized individuals can derive the meaning. In other words, encryption involves encoding plaintext to ciphertext using different techniques. Primarily, the encryption process requires the use of an encryption key, which is a programmable algorithm that both the sending and receiving parties of the encrypted message are aware of (Bost, 2016). As much as the encrypted message may seem to be random, the entire encryption process executes in a logical and predictable manner such that individual receiving the encrypted data message and at the same time in possession of the secret key meant for decoding the encoded text can actually perform decryption thus converting the text into plaintext as it was initially before encryption. Depending on the technique used, encryption generally is secure and complex hence third party individuals without the correct coding of the secret key and using methods such as brute force may not have a chance of decrypting the ciphertext (Kerr, & Schneider, 2017).
There are two main types of encryption; these include symmetric and asymmetric encryption. The former involves using one key by all potential users in a communication pool to encode plaintext and decode ciphertext. On the other hand, asymmetric encryption also referred to as a public key, involves the use of two secrete keys where one is used to encrypting data while the remaining one is used for decryption (Kaplan, Powell, & Woller, 2016). Notably, the two keys are consistent in their functioning such that a key can only be used to decrypt or encrypt but cannot both for the same message. At any given time under asymmetric encryption, one key is kept private (encrypting key) while the other is shared among the rest in the communication pool.
References
Bost, R. (2016, October). ∑ oφoς: Forward secure, searchable encryption. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 1143-1154).
Kaplan, D., Powell, J., & Woller, T. (2016). AMD memory encryption. White paper.
Kerr, O. S., & Schneier, B. (2017). Encryption workarounds. Geo. LJ, 106, 989.