NET 180 - Chapter 3: Encryption

In this chapter we learned about data encryption.

There are two types of encryption: Symmetric and Asymmetric.

Symmetric encryption is also called conventional encryption. It uses a single shared key to encrypt and decrypt a file or other data. There are five pieces to symmetric encryption: plaintext, encryption algorithm, shared secret key, ciphertext, decryption algorithm. An example of symmetric encryption would be DES/DEA. There were concerns about the early form of DES as far as how easily it could be cracked. In 1997, a programmer had proven this and therefore a new symmetric encryption was devised - AES, which became the standard in 2002.

Asymmetric Encryption is also known as public key encryption. It uses two keys that are mathematically related: one key for encryption, one key for decryption. Examples of Asymmetric encryption are RSA and PGP. This means of encryption is more secure than symmetric, however it is more process intensive and causes a lot of overhead in the CPU. Because of this, many crypto systems use a hybrid.

Data encryption protects data. Full disk encryption can be carried out with Hardware Security Modules or Trusted Platform Modules. There are dedicated hardware which take care of encrypting the data on a hard drive.