Cryptography and itsTypes

What is Cryptography and Its Types?

In this modern world, Communication by means of data transmission is playing a vital role. So, how we are making this data transmission more secure? Here comes cryptography. Crypt – ‘hidden’ Graphy – ‘writing’. In layman language, hiding information from the outside world and let only the right receiver know how to see it. In this article, we will discuss what is Cryptography and its types.

What is Cryptography.

As we discussed, Cryptography is the technique of encrypting information to secure data transmission. Let’s see the following scenario:

  • You have a file called foo.txt which needs to be sent to Joe. But it should be secured, and no other person can open or read it.
  • So, you need to secure the file from the outside world.
  • Here comes Cryptography. In the cryptographic technique, we encrypt the foo.txt file and send the encrypted file through the channel.
  • Without knowing how to decrypt the file, no once can open the file and see the content in the middle of a transmission.
  • Then, when the foo.txt file reaches the right person, which mean Joe will decrypt and open the file.
  • Because only he knows how to decrypt the file.
How Cryptography Works
How Cryptography Works

Here Encryption means scramble the data with some set of the pattern (key) from the cryptographic algorithm. Decryption means, descramble the data with the set of the pattern (key) from the same cryptographic algorithm. The encrypted data is called cipher data.

So, the basic concept behind the Cryptography is to lock the file with encryption before sending it and Open the file with the right key for decryption as mentioned in the above diagram.

Types of Cryptography

So, based on how we encrypt and decrypt the file, Cryptography is mainly classified as two types

  1. Symmetric Key Cryptography
  2. Asymmetric Key Cryptography

Let’s discuss both in detail.

Symmetric Key Cryptography

Symmetric key cryptography is also called Private key Cryptography. In this approach, both the sender and receiver will use the same key for encrypting and decrypting the message.

Symmetric Cryptography
Symmetric Cryptography

This means, In Symmetric Key Cryptography Sender will encrypt the data with a secret key. Then the receiver will use the same key to decrypt the received data. AES, DES, RC4, RC5, and RC6 are examples of symmetric key Cryptography

Asymmetric Key Cryptography

Asymmetric Key Cryptography is called as Public-key cryptography. In this approach, Receiver will use Private Key to Decrypt and Sender will use Public Key Encrypt.

Asymmetric Cryptography
Asymmetric Cryptography

So, when you send some data with Asymmetric Key cryptography to Joe, you will Encrypt the data with a public key which can be opened only by You with the Private Key Not even the Public Key. This method is considered more secure than the Symmetric Key Cryptography. Some most used Asymmetric Key Cryptography is Elliptic curve techniques, RSA, DSA, PKCS.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed what is Cryptography and Its types. We will see more detail about the Algorithm and Methods used in each Cryptography. Also, we will discuss more topics like how Public Key and Private Keys are created and used in Asymmetric Key Cryptography. Stay tuned and subscribe DigitalVarys for more articles and study materials on DevOpsAgileDevSecOps and App Development.

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