What is Cryptography?
Imagine you're transferring money through online banking. As your sensitive information, including your account number, password, and financial transactions, travels through various routes and networks, ensuring its security becomes paramount. This is where cryptography steps in.
Cryptography plays a vital role in securing transactions. It involves the encryption of data associated with the transaction, ensuring that only the intended recipient, usually the bank, can decrypt and process the transaction.
But what exactly is encryption? In simple terms, encryption is the process of converting information into a format that is unreadable by humans. By employing complex mathematical algorithms, cryptography transforms the data into a scrambled form called ciphertext. This ciphertext can only be understood and deciphered by those who possess the appropriate decryption key.
There are several type of cryptography and here is commonly used:-
Symmetric-key cryptography- This cryptography uses one single key for encryption and decryption process.
Same key is used from the both end (sender and receiver).This cryptography is easy but require secure key distribution. Because as the same key is used in both end if anyone who have the key, can decipher the information.
Symmetric-key algorithms include Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)and Data Encryption Standard (DES).Asymmetric-key Cryptography - This cryptography involves two key, public key and private key. public key is widely distributed. sender will use public key to encrypt the information and receiver(owner) decrypt information with private key. This process remove requirement of secure key distribution.
The most popular asymmetric algorithm is the RSA algorithm.Hash functions - Hash functions are cryptographic algorithms that take an input (message or data) and produce a fixed-size string of characters, its unique representation of the original input. Hash functions are commonly used to verify the integrity of data, as even a slight change in the input will result in a completely different hash output.
Examples of hash functions include Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and Message Digest Algorithm (MD5).
By understanding the fundamentals of cryptography and its various types, we can appreciate its vital role in securing our sensitive data and maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of our transactions.
Top comments (1)
This was a much-needed post, especially for the ones starting with or looking to invest in cryptocurrencies! Cryptography form the base of blockchain tech, which powers crypto transactions, making it secure and intermediary-free!
Lately, people have been investing massively in cryptocurrencies and related assets, owing to the decentralized nature of technology. Besides, exchanges and wallets like Coinbase and AnCrypto offers options as custodial and non-custodial storage respectively, and users can opt for either as per their convenience.