The ability to determine all possible vulnerabilities, attacks and threats, lead to a secure system. Threat mitigation comes first of performance. This report covers the various encryption algorithm used to secure your information over the network. It covers the symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption algorithm and Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).
Symmetric encryption algorithms share the same encryption and decryption key. The key got to be secret to provide privacy. Once the key fall in the hands of somebody else unsafe information gets transmitted. Some examples of symmetric encryption algorithms include; DES and 3DES (Michael, 2006). The DES and 3DES get to be used by government agencies and federal departments for cryptographic protection of information. The two methods of cryptography get used for authentication, integrity and non-repudiation of information (Avi, 2011). It becomes easier to ascertain the origin of the message and also verify if the message gets modified during transmission.
DES uses a 64-bit block to encrypt and decrypt data. The algorithm runs 16 times to create the cipher-text. It mainly takes plaintext of 64-bit block, as input and outputs 64-bit block of cipher-text. The 3DES invention came as a result of improving security of DES by using DES encryption three times and, using three different keys. It takes a 192-bit key (Michael, 2006). The 192-bit key gets broken into three sub-keys of 64-bit each for encryption procedure. The first sub-key gets used for encryption with the second sub-key for decryption and third sub-key once again for encryption (Avi, 2011).
Table 1
During its days, DES performed the tasks as required by the needs of the time. When the computers became more powerful and faster, its purpose got reduced, due to security issues (Avi, 2011). The invention of a more powerful encryption algorithm got launched. The invention lend to the birth of 3DES to replace the DES.
Asymmetric encryption algorithms use pairs of keys. One key gets used for encryption and the other for decryption. The encryption key gets kept as public key as it may be used to send encrypted data. The decryption key gets kept as private for the owner of the secret key. The secret key cannot be reconstructed from the public key. They get suited for the real-world use. Some of the asymmetric encryption methods include; RSA and DSA.
RSA got named after its inventors: Shamir, Rivest and Adleman. It uses a public keys and private keys that use pairs of large prime numbers as functions. RSA gets used for both encryption and digital signatures (Michael, 2006). RSA algorithms generate the encryption and decryption keys randomly. Encryption uses a public key while encryption uses the secret key. The sender of information uses the public key while the receiver of the message uses the private key to decrypt data. DSA got approved by United State Federal Government Standard (USFGS) for digital signatures (Peter, 2003). It got proposed for digital signatures standards by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The advantages differ when sending a message or using signatures. DSA get much faster than RSA when generating digital signatures since, in RSA the private key got only used to encrypt the message but not the signature. When sending an encrypted message, RSA becomes much faster than DSA since DSA uses mathematical function in generating signatures. The disadvantage is that DSA is more complex to implement than RSA (Peter, 2003). This is due mathematical functions used composed of 160-bit numbers.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) gets used for encryption and decryption of emails over the internet. The encrypted digital signatures get sent over the internet. The message receiver can verify the sender and to make sure the message not tampered with en route. It has become the main standard in email security (Miles & Dennis). It also encrypts stored files to ensure they are unreadable to intruders and other unauthorized users.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) uses a public key system. In the system, each user has a public and private encryption key only known to the user. When messages get sent to other people, they get encrypted using the public key. The received message gets decrypted using a private key. Pretty Good Privacy uses an encryption algorithm to encrypt large messages. The algorithm uses the public key for encrypting the shorter key used to encrypt the entire message.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) uses a secure system. This because the functionality of RSA encryption algorithm which can generate a short key for the entire message and RSA for encrypting a short key. Its disadvantage got to be that it has a complex algorithm which sometimes may take time when encrypting and decrypting messages (Miles & Dennis).
Pretty Good Privacy has served the purpose as the best program over the internet. Users can send or receive messages in a confidential manner. Thanks to the security provided by the Pretty Good Privacy program.
References
Avi, K. (2011), Classical Encryption Techniques. Web.
Miles, E.S. & Dennis, K.B. (n.d.) National Institute of Standards and Technology. Web.
Michael, M. (2009). CompTIA Security Passport. Columbus: McGraw Hill.
Peter, J. C. (2003). Notes on cryptography. Web.