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2.3 Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption

Data encryption

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15 views6 pages

2.3 Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption

Data encryption

Uploaded by

knoxabyte.his
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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2.3.

1 The purpose of encryption


• When data is transmitted over any public network (wired or wireless), there is always a risk of it being
intercepted by, for example, a hacker.
• Under these circumstances, a hacker is often referred to as an eavesdropper.
• Using encryption helps to minimise this risk.
• Encryption alters data into a form that is unreadable by anybody for whom the data is not intended.
• It cannot prevent the data being intercepted, but it stops it from making any sense to the eavesdropper.
• This is particularly important if the data is sensitive or confidential (for example, credit card/bank details,
medical history or legal documents).
Plaintext and ciphertext
• The original data being sent is known as plaintext. Once it has gone through an encryption algorithm, it
produces ciphertext:
Symmetric encryption
• Symmetric encryption uses an encryption key; the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt the encoded
message.
• First of all, consider a simple system that uses a 10-digit denary encryption key and a decryption key.
• Suppose our encryption key is:
4291362856
• which means every letter in a word is shifted across the alphabet +4, +2, +9, +1, and so on, places. For
example, here is the message COMPUTER SCIENCE IS EXCITING

• To get back to the original message, it will be necessary to apply the same decryption key; that is, 4 2 9 1 3
6 2 8 5 6.
• But in this case, the decryption process would be the reverse of encryption and each letter would be
shifted –4, –2, –9, –1, and so on.
• However, modern computers could ‘crack’ this encryption key in a matter of seconds.
• Therefore, the issue of security is always the main drawback of symmetrical encryption, since a single
encryption key is required for both sender and recipient.
Asymmetric encryption
• Asymmetric encryption was developed to overcome the security problems associated with symmetric
encryption. It makes use of two keys called the public key and the private key:
» public key (made available to everybody)
» private key (only known to the computer user).
• Both types of key are needed to encrypt and decrypt messages.
EXAMPLE - suppose Tom and Jane work for the same company and Tom wishes to send a confidential
document to Jane:
• However, if a two-way communication is required between all five workers, then they all need to
generate their own matching public and private keys.
• Once this is done, all users then need to swap public keys so that they can send encrypted
documents/files/messages between each other. Each worker will then use their own private key to
decrypt information being sent to them.

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