Essay on Cryptography

Encryption technique is the translation of data into a secret code that will prevent hackers or identity thieves from being able to break or read the data that is sent across the network.

Generally speaking, modern encryption techniques fall into one of two categories - symmetric (homogeneous) and asymmetric (heterogeneous). Symmetric encryption is a system of communication whereby both parties share the same key to encode and decode a message. The Spartan generals used this method with their scytales.

Encryption is the conversion of electronic data into another form, called cipher text, which cannot be easily understood by anyone except authorized parties. The primary purpose of encryption is to protect the confidentiality of digital data stored on computer systems or transmitted via the Internet or other computer networks. Modern encryption algorithms play

Moreover, encryption requires use of a key or cipher, which is used to lock and unlock the hidden data. Such a key is necessary to allow the hidden data to be viewed in an intelligible manner by those who are authorized to view it. However, there is always a risk that the encryption key might fall into the wrong hands, thereby allowing the information to be accessed by unauthorized viewers.

Data, often referred to as plaintext, is encrypted using an encryption algorithm and an encryption key. This process generates ciphertext that can only be viewed in its original form if decrypted with the correct key. Decryption is simply the inverse of encryption, following the same steps but reversing the order in which the keys are applied (Rouse, 2014).

An encryption algorithm takes the original message and encodes it using the encryption key and creates an encrypted message. The only way to retrieve the original message is by decrypting the message using the encryption key. If the encryption key uses a 128-bit key is the same as saying that there are 128² possible key combinations. Algorithms are classified

To understand encryption, you must place yourself into the internet of the 90’s. At the time the internet was still new, all the data could be seen and accessed easily.The problem was that anyone could access your information and read it. This was a major issue because at that time, internet privacy was almost impossible.

Encryption converts data from a readable form to unintelligible text. Only authorized users are able to convert the data back into a readable format. (Sayles & Trawick,

Research Objective: The main theme of this research paper is to protect sensitive information that any organization or business possess. With community’s increasing reliance on information systems and technology there is scope for security breaches, more likely to happen. Not only monetary loss it can create damage to information assets that has sensitive data. To secure these assets from any internal or external damage organizations has to follow proposed rules and guidelines. Also security responsibilities

Before approaching Claude Shannon’s contribution to Cryptography, one must look at his prior work in particular in the field of information theory, a field he theorized in his 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Information. Shannon introduced a lot of the ideas that were mentioned and developed in this revolutionary paper to the scientific community in his 1945 paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography.

Encryption is a method of programming data for security so that it appears to be random data. Only the people sending and receiving the information have the key to decrypt the message, which will put it back into its original form making it readable. The only people with the key are the people who are intended to read the message. Not many people know what encryption is. I took a survey of twenty students and asked two questions. The first question I asked was do you know what encryption means and the second question I asked was have you ever heard of anybody using encryption. This is a chart of the information I received:

Passwords for access to personal phones, computers, online portals, and websites has become very prevalent and the best practice for authentication. Additionally, passwords authenticate mobile phones, computer networks and databases for many software applications. However, ensuring that passwords are encrypted, and safe have become one of the greatest challenges for most organizations. This paper will review some of the vulnerabilities of the use of passwords and provide controls to implementation to assist with the management and handling of passwords.

The need for trust between 2 participants is a potential threat since there is no independent verification process.

Asymmetric key system (or asymmetric algorithm; public key): A cryptographic system that uses two separate keys: one key to encrypt and a different key to decrypt information. These keys are known as public and private

Encryption is a method of converting plain text to cipher text using some base keys and