Today technology has become part of the human life. Without technology day to day activities cannot be done. Though technology is being helpful in many ways, it also has some disadvantages too, especilally in the way of hacking.
Hacking is one of the biggest threat to technology. Sitting somewhere by hacking the hackers loot money, there are many ways of hacking that we can’t even think of.
Today there are large number of people who are using social media networks. Some people manage 3-4 accounts, and at the time the question of security arises. We all text through social media especially most of the conversations takes place through WhatsApp, but we all have that fear of getting hacked or sometimes we fear that what if others read our messages. Hence to make us fearless and protect our privacy these social media apps use a special technology on which even that platform employees will not be able to read our messages, that is ‘ Cryptography’.
Cryptography is the art of keeping information secure by transforming it into form that unintended recipients cannot understand. Cryptography is technique of securing information and communications through use of codes so that only those person for whom the information is intended can understand it and process it, thus preventing unauthorised access to information.
The prefix “crypt” means “hidden” and suffix “graphy” means “writing”.
Earlier cryptography was effectively synonymous with encryption but nowadays cryptography is mainly based on mathematical theory and computer science practice.
In Cryptography the techniques which are used to protect information are obtained from Mathematical concepts and a set of rule based calculations known as algorithms to convert messages in ways that make it hard to decode it. These algorithms are used for cryptographic key generation, digital signing, verification to protect data privacy, web browsing on internet and to protect confidential transactions such as credit card and debit card transactions.
Cryptosystems use a set of procedures known as cryptographic algorithms, or ciphers, to encrypt and decrypt messages to secure communications among computer systems, devices and applications.
In today’s age of computers cryptography is often associated with the process where an ordinary plain text is converted to cipher text which is the text made such that intended receiver of the text can only decode it and hence this process is known as encryption. The process of conversion of cipher text to plain text this is known as decryption.
A cipher suite uses one algorithm for encryption, another algorithm for message authentication and another for key exchange. This process, embedded in protocols and written in software that runs on operating systems (OSes) and networked computer systems.
In Cryptography there are various types used in various communication systems. A secure system should provide several assurances such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data as well as authenticity and non-repudiation. When used correctly, crypto helps to provide these assurances.
Cryptography can ensure the confidentiality and integrity of both data in transit as well as data at rest. It can also authenticate senders and recipients to one another and protect against repudiation.
Software systems often have multiple endpoints, typically multiple clients, and one or more back-end servers. These client/server communications take place over networks that cannot be trusted. Communication occurs over open, public networks such as the Internet, or private networks which may be compromised by external attackers or malicious insiders. Thus, it can protect communications that traverse untrusted networks.