Encryption is a security and privacy mechanism which makes certain communication (texts, images, videos, etc.) unintelligible for those who do not have access to the message's “translation” codes.
In digital communications, encryption helps to protection of all transmitted content between two or more sources, avoiding interception by cybercriminals, hackers and spies, for example.
Learn more about the meaning of hacker.
Currently, most websites on the internet use encrypted communications, especially in places where bank details, passwords and personal files are stored.
In addition to preventing unauthorized persons from gaining access to data and information exchanged on the online network, encryption also prevents backups accessed by unauthorized users.
Find out more about the meaning of Backup.
Etymologically, the term “cryptography” originated from the Greek, formed by the union of the elements kruptós, which means "secret" or "hidden", and graphics, which means “writing”. So the literal meaning of encryption is "secret writing".
In everyday life, encryption systems are used by application users and softwares of instant messaging, such as the Whatsapp, for example.
Encryption Types
In communications made through electronic devices, the most used method of encryption is calls "cryptographic keys".
Cryptographic keys consist of sets of algorithms that encode a publicly readable message into a ciphertext, that is, composed of secret values that can only be deciphered with the access code right.
There are two main types of cryptographic keys, studied through the branch of Mathematics known as cryptology: at symmetrical and the asymmetric.
Symmetric
Also known as "one-key encryption" or “private key encryption”, this model uses only a set of algorithms responsible for both the encryption of a given operation, as well as its decryption.
In this case, the assumption of reliability between the interlocutors must be total, since both share a single encryption key, both to encrypt and to decrypt a message, for example.
Asymmetric
Also known as “public key encryption”, this is a system of cryptographic protocols that requires the formation of two keys, one being private (used to decrypt) and the other public (used to encode and authenticate digital signatures, by example).
With asymmetric encryption, anyone can send an encrypted message using the public key, but only recipients with the private key can decrypt it. The information secrecy consists in keeping the private key code secret, for example.
See also: the meaning of Whatsapp.
