With the advancement in technology, computers, smartphones, and all other gadgets are an essential part of our daily life, and it isn’t easy to imagine functioning without them. Cyber crimes are increasing rapidly, and all our daily businesses are vulnerable due to insufficient cyber security. From sending sensitive information and social media to online shopping and banking, it becomes necessary to step forward that doesn’t allow cyber-criminals to modify and get hold of our data, accounts, and devices.
Critical information is stored and transformed into digital form, bytes, and bits, on open communication channels. At the same time, hackers and criminals target sensitive information to steal, alter, or disrupt the information system. Here we need techniques and art that secure our information from adversaries. Cryptography provides a set of techniques that prevents harmful intentions of spammers while ensuring the information is transmitted to legitimate users. Let’s dive deep into the article to know everything about cryptography along with the importance of Cryptography in cyber-security.
What is meant by Cryptography?
The term “Cryptography” comes from two words, “crypt” and “graphy,” which means hidden” and “writing,” respectively. This term refers to the practice of secret codes to encrypt and decrypt all sensitive information.
Cryptography is a technique of hiding sensitive information to prevent unauthorized access to secured connections and data. It ensures that the shared data, through some codes, will only understand by the destined person so that the information is protected from cyber threats.
Cryptography is based on the same numerical hypotheses and computational algorithms. And the information is transformed via these algorithms, making it difficult for outsiders to find the original message. This is due to extra security to ensure that only the destined person can decode the message.
Cryptography uses numbers, microdots, images, letters, and distorted and scrambled symbols to make information more challenging for outsiders. So, without decrypting the codes of the message, one can’t access the required information.
Objectives of Cryptography
These objectives, known as cryptosystems, are essential to fulfill for the best cryptography as this help to secure data and provide authenticity in the transmission of information. Users must be conscious and careful when choosing login details and passwords so that outsiders can’t guess the details and access the information.
Here are the essential objectives of cryptography:
Authentication
It revolves around the authenticity of the sender and recipient, as both know each other’s intentions and identity. They both know how to encrypt or decrypt the information.
Confidentiality
Cryptography uses the encryption technique and maintains the confidentiality of information. Due to this technique, users can guard their communication from unauthorized visitors.
Data Integrity
It involves using cryptographic hash functions, ensuring that the information remains safe in all processes of transferring and receiving. No other third party can decode or use the information.
Non-repudiation
Non-repudiation service is provided by the digital signature in which the sender of the text can’t claim to send the encryption when it converts into codes.
History of Cryptography
In previous decades, the name “obscurity” has been mainly used by cryptography in order to secure information. It ensures that the communication remains secret between two parties, sender and receiver, but it was challenging to implement it on a broad scale.
As the advancement in technology is soaring so, we witness electronic systems with highly intellectual properties that are more secure and accessible all over the globe. The technique of obscurity is no longer in use. Instead, people with the wrong intention would try to disrupt all sensitive information.
The art of cryptography started with ciphers, the Caesar Cipher. As compared to the modern algorithms, these ciphers were hundred times easier to interrupt, but the structure of both is the same. Although the ciphers were simple, these were the initial form of encryption. Today’s cryptosystems and algorithms are highly advanced as they use multiple rounds of ciphers to make the storage and transfer of data more secure.
Modern cryptography introduced methods are irreversible in order to secure the message permanently. Initial cryptography’s algorithms and ciphers have been deciphered, making cryptography useless and risky for information security. But, now algorithms are highly complex, and it takes years, even decades, to decode the meaning of just a single message. So, it plays a significant role in securing communication in our daily life.
Future of Cryptography
You might think that developing high-level security systems that handle millions of transactions in real-time is impossible. Here come improvised algorithms of cryptography. These algorithms are revolutionized and of high standard such that it is almost impossible to find the vulnerabilities of systems. But, still, the race to create newer, complex, advanced cryptography algorithms continues.
Let’s take a look at the future of cryptography
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)
Elliptic Curve Cryptography is a modern public-key cryptosystem that is based on Elliptic curve theory and implements all capabilities of the cryptosystems such as encryption, key exchange, signature, and decryption. It is considered a modern form of the RSA cryptosystem because it uses more minor signatures and keys as compared to RSA and provides very fast key agreement, fast key generation, and also fast signatures. So, it has already been invented, but its benefits and drawbacks are not yet fully understood. Like the other encryption methods, it has to be proved secure to be accepted for commercial and governmental use.
Quantum computation
At present day, quantum computing is still a new phenomenon. Modern computers use binary format, known as a bit, to store data as 1 or a 0, while quantum computers use quantum superposition of numerous states to secure the crucial data. As per recent research, it will take another decade, anywhere in 2030, to genuinely design quantum computers and their uses in practical life. However, new quantum computers are found each day, creating a chance to design quantum computers more rapidly.
- To get the idea of quantum computing, suppose RSA-640 can be factored over the span of 5 months. And, surprisingly quantum computers can factor in less than 18 seconds.
- Typically, numbers take millions of years to compute advanced quantum computers can compute these numbers in hours or even minutes.
P.S. In accordance with the above facts, modern cryptography needs to take a look at computational problems or develop completely revolutionized techniques for achieving objectives served by current cryptography.
Types of Cryptography
In general, cryptography can be further classified into the following categories
- Symmetric Key Cryptography
- Hash Functions
- Asymmetric Key Cryptography
Symmetric Key Cryptography
Symmetric Key Cryptography is an encryption system where a common key is used at both ends, sender, and receiver, for encryption and decryption of the message. This system is also known as secret and private cryptography. The most common systems of symmetric key cryptography are Data Encryption System (DES) and Advanced Encryption System (AES). This key system has one major disadvantage the sender and receiver need to exchange their keys in a secure way because only one key is used for the process of encryption and decryption.
Hash Function
The Hash function is a type of cryptography that uses no key in the algorithm as it works in a one-way style. It takes input with arbitrary length and produces output in fixed length. It takes the numeric output and gives output that is message digest or hash, so it is often known as a mathematical equation. A hash function contains different rounds; each round carries input, the combination of the recent block and output of the last round. Today, various systems use this type of cryptography to encrypt login details. Also known as the building block of modern-era cryptography.
Types
Here are the most widely used Hash functions
- SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm)
- Whirlpool
- RIPEMD
- Message Digest 5 (MD5)
P.S. MD5 is the most popular hash function to protect private data and encrypt passwords.
Asymmetric Key Cryptographic
As the name suggests, it is a more secure and exactly opposite approach than symmetric key cryptography. In asymmetric key cryptography, users have to use pair of keys or two keys (public key or private key) for encryption as well as the decryption process. A public key is used when anyone can send a message to anyone, while a private key is used as a secret from every person. Also, it is known as public key cryptography.
Both keys are totally different, so if anyone knows the public key, they can’t decode the intended message with the private key.
Types
Here are some essential types of Asymmetric key cryptography
- Elliptic Curve techniques
- Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCs)
- Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA)
- Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA)
P.S. RSA is the most commonly used asymmetric algorithm.
Role of Cryptography in Cyber-Security
Actually, cyber-security is the practice of protecting internet-connected devices such as software, hardware, and sensitive information from malicious attacks by cyber-criminals. So, cryptography in cyber-security helps in designing robust cyber-security strategies and also plays an instrumental role in preventing spasms, aiming to weaken the information system of cyber-security.
Here are some essential roles of cryptography in cyber-security
- In cyber-security, data integration refers to the fact that the data and information system are correct. If the security system has integrity, it means that all kinds of information in the system are processed in predictable ways, and this process doesn’t decrypt the information. With the use of message digests and hashing algorithms, cryptography ensures data integration. It ensures that the received message is accurate from the genuine sender and data has not been altered during transfer using digital keys and codes.
- Information security is a primary concern for business communities in this competitive era. When expert implements the right strategies of cryptography, it helps to protect sensitive information of organizations and prevent business from falling prey to cyber-criminals.
- When it comes to the role of cryptography, confidentiality is at the top of the page. Confidentiality confirms that the person with the permission of accessibility can read the information, and it is guarded against hackers throughout its life. It is instrumental in maintaining the security of personal information processed in enterprise systems. Encryption is the most secure way for the privacy of data, and even when the storage medium is being disturbed, then encrypted data will be useless for unauthorized visitors without a suitable key for decryption.
- Digital signatures are created with hashing functions and public key cryptosystems that are also cryptography. Just like the signatures on paper, digital signatures play an influential role in the authenticity of the message. It appears when the parties are dealing with online transactions (as many do), and it is the need of the hour in dealings of big business as their paperwork is high.
- Non-repudiation is one of the main objectives of cryptography, and it discusses the confirmation of the transmitted information that is sent or received. It ensures that the sender of the information can’t deny that they sent this particular information. Here cryptography also uses a digital signature to confirm the source of information.
- In information security, cryptography makes the availability of data and information reachable to individuals with encrypted keys in a timely and dependable manner. This principle ensures that information systems become more valuable and reliable.
Final Verdict
Cryptography in cyber-security ensures that our systems and all sensitive information are safe and not hacked by destructive malware or spammers. Billions of people across the globe try to get benefit from technology, from their daily usage to big business. Therefore, they regularly store, process, and transmit their personal information. If these protecting techniques, like cryptography, are not working to protect networks and devices, then these systems are vulnerable to crimes and fraud. And it would create a massive loss for all aspects of life.
Cryptography is one of the remedies to lessen cyber threats. If all systems use the art of cryptography as the effective means of cyber-security, all networks and systems will be more secure.