Cryptography is the science of using mathematics to encrypt and decrypt information, which means putting into or decoding from a mathematical language. It is the process of encrypting and decrypting the message.
Encryption – is a process of changing or converting normal text or data information into unintelligible text.
Decryption – is a process of changing or converting unintelligible text back to correct message or data by using encryption method.
Cryptography in digital world offers three core area that protect you and your data from an unauthorised use of your data and fraud. Three core areas are; integrity, authentication and confidentiality.
Integrity: It is about how to protect your data, corresponding to that certificates it can be used in another technique that’s “digital signatures”, to ensure that nobody can impersonate you.
Authentication: It is a process in Cryptography that offers a solution, called “digital IDs,” because it can be used to verify the identity of unknown person.
Confidentiality; By using Cipher you can keep your information secret especially when you send private data over a network. A cipher is intelligent system that knows how to encrypt and decrypt data. Before you send sensitive data over a network, or store it on a disk, you can encrypt it, which turns it unreadable. If you need the data again, you can use the cipher to decrypt the data.
Cryptography allows people to carry over the confidence found in the physical world to the electronic world. It allows people to do business electronically without worries of deception. When people started doing business online and needed to transfer funds electronically, the applications of cryptography for integrity began to surpass its use for secrecy. Thousands of people interact electronically every day, whether it is through e-mail, e-commerce (business conducted over the Internet), ATM machines, or cellular phones.
Major Cryptography Tools are as follows:
- Key-agreement protocols
- Secret-key cryptosystems
- Public-key cryptosystems
- Digital signature
Objectives of Cryptography:
- Sender and recipient authentication
- Message privacy
- Non repudiation
It Secure communication like:
- Local area networks
- Link encryption
- Cellular phones and faxes
Advantages of it:
- Full Secure data exchange as no hacker or third party should be able to intercept the important data.
- To over come privacy, secrecy
Kinds of Cryptography
- Symmetric system – under which cryptosystems use the same secret key to encrypt or decrypt a message received data packet from trusted partners.
- Asymmetric system – under, which two different keys are used to encrypt and decrypt the message or received data packet. On public key is used to encrypt the data or message and the private key on receiving end is used to decrypt the message or data packet.
So, it is true that now Cryptography has become one of the major methods for protection in all applications.