What Are Cryptography And Its Types?

Cryptography

What Are Cryptography And Its Types?

Koopverse

In the modern world, data transmission plays a crucial part in communication. Then, how are we securing this data transmission? The time of cryptography has arrived. Crypt means 'hidden' Graphy means "writing." Generally, encrypting information from the outer world and allowing just the authorized recipient to access it.

What Is Cryptography?

The idea behind cryptography is to encrypt a file before delivering it and then allow access to those who have the correct decryption key. Cryptography is the practice of protecting communications from public scrutiny. Using encryption algorithms, the original message, called plaintext, is transformed into ciphertext, which cannot be understood. The user can decrypt the message with the key, which means they can access it. Researchers also analyze how difficult an encryption’s randomness is, which makes it more difficult for someone to guess the algorithm’s input or key. Using cryptography, we can make our interactions more secure and private. Cryptography has improved, making encrypted data, folders, and network connections only available to authorized users.

Cryptography is focused on four distinct goals:

Confidentiality: Confidentiality ensures that the intended receiver can decrypt and read the message.
Non-repudiation: Non-repudiation means that the person who sent or created the message can’t go back in time and deny why they sent or created it.
Integrity: Integrity emphasizes the assurance that the data contained within a message cannot be altered during storage or transmission.
Authenticity: Authenticity guarantees that the sender and the recipient can check each other’s identities and the message’s destination.

These objectives contribute to the security and authenticity of data transmissions.

Types of Cryptography

There are three distinct types of cryptography, and they are as follows:

Symmetric cryptography (Secret Key Cryptography)
Asymmetric cryptography (Public Key Cryptography)
Hash Functions

1. Symmetric Key Cryptography

Private Key cryptography is another name for symmetric key cryptography. In this method, the sender and recipient can use the same key for encoding and decoding the information.

This signifies that the sender will use a private key to encrypt the data in symmetric key cryptography. Then, the recipient can decipher the message using the same key.

The advanced security features of symmetric key cryptography are one of the main reasons it is used. In an attacker’s presence, symmetric key algorithms are more difficult to crack. Another factor is the symmetric key’s speed. They can quickly and easily encrypt and decrypt data using the same key.

There are only a few kinds of Symmetric key cryptography.

Block
Block cypher
DES (Data Encryption System)
RC2
IDEA
Blowfish
Stream cypher

One major drawback of symmetric key algorithms was the necessity to acknowledge the key. Both the sender and the receiver must keep their respective keys secure. The fragility of symmetric keys is just another drawback of using them. Once the hacker gains access to either the sender’s or the recipient’s communication, the integrity of all messages is at risk.

2. Asymmetric Key Cryptography

Public-key cryptography is also known as Asymmetric Key Cryptography. In this method, the Receiver will decrypt using a private key, while the sender will encrypt using a public key.

So, when you send data to Joe using Asymmetric Key cryptography, you will encrypt it with a public key that can only be decoded with the Private Key. This procedure is considered to have a higher level of security than symmetric key cryptography.

The primary benefit of asymmetric key encryption has been an increase in the system’s level of security. The usage of a digital signature is another benefit. A digital signature is necessary to validate a reliable Internet connection. Asymmetric key encryption has a huge and wide range of encryption strengths, which makes it difficult to hack.

Some asymmetric key cryptography types are:

RSA
DSA
PKCs
Elliptic curve techniques

Encryption speed is one of the major disadvantages of asymmetric key encryption. This method is slower than the symmetric method. Another drawback of asymmetric keys is their length. To secure the data, the asymmetric requires long keys.

3. Hash Function

A hash function uses an algorithm that receives a message of any size as input and gives back a fixed-length message. It is also called a mathematical equation since it accepts numerical data as input and generates a hash message. This approach does not require a key because it operates in a one-way setup.

Hashing is a method for converting an input string into an output string of a fixed length. A reliable hashing algorithm will generate distinct outputs for each input value. You can only crack a hash once you find an input that yields the same hash. Data, such as passwords, can be processed with a hash, and hashes can also be used in certificates. There are multiple rounds of hashing operations, and each round treats the input as an array of the most recent block and generates the output from the previous round. Only a few of the hash’s features are currently available:

Message Digest 5 (MD5)
RIPEMD
Whirlpool
SHA (Secure hash Algorithm)
Blake 2
Blake 3

Applications of Cryptography

The following are cryptography applications.

Traditionally, cryptography was primarily used in applications that served the objective of providing security. With the advent of digital communications, security has become highly significant. The use of cryptography procedures for maintaining absolute secrecy has become outdated. Several cryptography applications are discussed below.

Cryptography enables the storage of encrypted data, which helps users avoid the major security vulnerabilities hackers can use.

A common method for ensuring reliability involves performing a checksum on the transmitted data and sending the associated checksum in an encoded format. Consequently, effective cryptographic algorithms are vital for ensuring message transmission reliability.

Strong cryptography and physical means and group secrets can provide highly trustworthy identification verification.

As cyber-attacks continue to evolve, the necessity for security increases, and as a result, cryptography techniques gain prominence. These encryption methods restrict hacking efforts and make their progress impossible.

Cryptography