In a computer, encryption means that data, like a plain text is converted into another type, it means that data from the readable form is transformed into an encoded version that can only be read by the person who owns the encryption key to decode the data. Encryption is used to provide high-level data security, especially for E2E(end to end) data protection for transmission between devices and networks. Nowadays encryption is widely used to provide data security for most of the web applications. Approximately there may be no application on the internet that is not using data encryption. Encryption protects private information that is being sent between a browser and server, like passwords, credit card information, bank details and any other personal information that should be considered private. Individuals and Organizations today use encryption to protect private data stored on servers, computers, and mobile devices.
Working of Encryption
Data that is unencrypted is also known as plain text that is easily read by anybody. Encryption algorithms are used to encrypt data along with an encryption key. The ciphertext is generated that can only be decrypted to its original form with its decryption key. Decryption is the opposite of encryption, the same steps that are taken to encrypt the data, reversing their order you can get the original form of data. Two mostly used encryption methods are symmetric and asymmetric.
The symmetric key is also known as ‘secret key.’ In symmetric vital ciphers, a single key is used, that could be shared with another entity or person that can also decrypt the data. The widely used symmetric cipher is AES(Advanced Encryption Standard), that is mostly used to secure government classified information and data.
Asymmetric encryption is slower than symmetric encryption as symmetric is faster but the sender must exchange the key that was used to encrypt data with the receiver before he can perform decryption. Most of the cryptographic processes are encrypted using a symmetric algorithm to distribute and manage a large number of keys securely, but keys are exchanged using an asymmetric algorithm.
Asymmetric encryption also referred to as public key cryptography, uses two keys, one is public, and the other is private. Encrypter can share the public key with anyone, while the private key is kept secret. The most widely used public key algorithm is RSA, public and private keys, both could be used to encrypt a message. The opposite form of key is used to decrypt the message that was used to code it. This property gives a technique for guaranteeing privacy, as well as the uprightness, credibility, and nonreputability of electronic interchanges and information very still using computerized marks.
Encryption Types
Triple DES
The design of Triple DES algorithm replaced the original Data Encryption Standard(DES). Hackers learned the DES eventually to trounce it. Triple DES was the most widely used symmetric algorithm in the industry. It uses three different keys that were 56 bits each. The total length of the key is up to 168 bits, but most experts say that 112 bits in key strength are more like it. Triple DES still can manage to create reliable hardware encryption solutions for different services.
RSA
RSA uses a public encryption key algorithm and also used as a standard for sending encrypted data over the internet. RSA is an asymmetric algorithm because of its use of a pair of keys. A public key is used to encrypt the message, and a private key is used to decrypt the message. RSA encryption results in a large batch that is difficult for an attacker to break it.
Blowfish
Blowfish is another encryption algorithm that is better than DES. This Encryption algorithm breaks the message into 64 bits of blocks and then individually encrypts them one by one. Blowfish is famous for its extraordinary speed and effectiveness because of most of the claims that it’s never defeated. Vendors took full advantage of it because it's freely available in public. Many software categories ranging from e-commerce to password management for securing payments uses the Blowfish algorithm. It’s the most tensile encryption type available.
Twofish
Blowfish’s mastermind is expert Bruce Scheiner and the successor of Twofish. The length of the keys in the Twofish algorithm could be up to 256 bits. The symmetric technique is used, and only one key is needed. Twofish is ideal for use in both hardware and software environments and is known as the fastest algorithm of its kind. Twofish is also available freely in public.
AES(Advanced Encryption Standard)
United States Government and other organizations use Advanced Encryption Standard as the trusted standard algorithm.
AES also uses 192 and 256 bits for heavy encryption, but it’s most efficient in 128-bit form. AES is considered to be the invulnerable algorithm to all types of attacks instead of brute force because it tries to decrypt the message by using all possible combinations in 128,192 and 256-bit cipher.
History Of Encryption
Encryption word is derived from the Greek word Kryptos, which means secret or hidden. Encryption is an old art as the communication is. In the early 1900 B.C., an Egyptian scribe who used non-standard hieroglyphs to hide the meaning of an inscription. In a time when most of the people were uneducated and could not read, the writing was enough for them. Encryption developed earlier to hide and protect the messages by converting it into unreadable groups of figures. Letters were replaced by symbols, characters, and pictures to preserve the original meaning of the word.
In 700 B.C., the Spartans wrote psychic messages on a letter strip wrapped around some sticks. When the tape is removed, the characters become meaningless, but if you have the strip of the same diameter, you can again get the real message. After this Romans used the Caesar Shift Cipher, a monoalphabetic cipher in which an agreed number shifts each letter. For example, if the accepted figure is 3, then the text ‘Hello World’ would become ‘Khoor Zruog.’ In the middle age, people saw the emergence of polyalphabetic substitutions, which uses multiple substitutions alphabetic to limit the use of frequency analysis to crack a cipher. In the 1970s encryption took a major step to conceal the information. Before this, all encryption schemes used the same secret for encrypting and decrypting messages that is a symmetric key. In 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman’s paper “New Directions in Cryptography’ solved one of the real problems of cryptography, that was how to distribute the encryption key to those who need it securely. RSA explained this breakthrough, that was an implementation of public key cryptography using asymmetric algorithms.
