31 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
31 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Encryption algorithms are essential for protecting sensitive information and
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ensuring secure communications in a variety of domains. They are used for
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several important reasons:
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* Confidentiality, privacy, and intellectual property protection
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* Security during transmission or on storage devices
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* Data integrity, general trust, and authentication
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When selecting encryption algorithms, tools, or combinations, you should also
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consider two things:
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1. No encryption is unbreakable.
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2. The strength of an encryption algorithm is usually measured by the effort required to crack it within a reasonable time frame.
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In today's cryptography, the length of the *key* directly affects the security
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level of cryptographic algorithms.
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Note that depending on the algorithm, the term *key* refers to a different
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mathematical property. For example:
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* For RSA, the key is the product of two large prime numbers, also called the **modulus**.
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* For AES and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), the key is only a sequence of randomly generated bytes.
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** In some cases, AES keys are derived from a master key or a passphrase using a Key Derivation Function (KDF) like PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2)
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If an application uses a key that is considered short and *insecure*, the
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encrypted data is exposed to attacks aimed at getting at the plaintext.
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In general, it is best practice to expect a breach: that a user or organization
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with malicious intent will perform cryptographic attacks on this data after
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obtaining it by other means.
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