Cryptography - Need for Encryption

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Every day, a huge amount of private information is sent over the Internet, including passwords entered into login screens, emails carrying personal information, and tax documents uploaded to servers.

Private data is transmitted over the Internet in packets with the help of the same pathways as public data. Unfortunately, malicious individuals have found methods to intercept this data during its journey across the Internet.

This chapter will explore the importance of encryption in securing our data and its practical benefits in our daily lives. Let us first delve into the meaning of encryption before exploring its necessity.

What is Encryption?

We can secretly coded our data to hide its true meaning with the help of the process of Encryption. So cryptography is the study of data encryption and decryption.

For a long time our sensitive data has been protected using encryption. It has been used by governments and armies in the past. So our data is now protected with encryption when it is in motion as well as at rest. Computers and other storage devices store data that is in an inactive state. In-motion data refers to data that travels across networks and devices. Encryption is used to protect sensitive data like passwords, financial information, and personal details against illegal access and manipulation.

What data should be Encrypted?

Below are some categories of data for which we need encryption −

• Credit Card Details

• Account Passwords

• Social Numbers

• Mobile Phone Numbers

• House Addresses

• Bank Account Details

• Patient Health Details

• And many other confidential details

So if you do not have correct data encryption protecting information then you can lead to some complex instances. So if these confidential information got leaked then your business and data can be damaged in more ways. It can be economic disasters, brand disasters, and may customers lack faith in you.

You need to back up all the encrypted data. It is important that data encryption for both at-rest and in-transit cover your base as well.

Principles of Encryption

Encryption is crucial for the protection of various IT assets and private identified data. In regard to this, encryption meets four important principles −

• Confidentiality − Encryption makes sure that only authorized parties can access and understand the encrypted data. Encodes the data to prevent it from being understood if it is intercepted by a third party. By changing the plaintext into ciphertext using cryptographic algorithms to secure the private data. For example: It is like having a secret language that only you and your friends understand.

• Authentication − It is the process of making the piece of data being claimed by the user belongs to it. It verifies the origin of the data that has been encrypted. Digital certificates and cryptographic protocols authenticate users and devices by validating their credentials and confirming their identity before establishing secure communication channels. Authentication prevents impersonation attacks and unauthorized access by ensuring that only trusted entities can decrypt and access encrypted data.

• Integrity − Encryption helps maintain the integrity of data by finding any unauthorized changes or modifications. Using techniques like digital signatures and message authentication codes (MACs), encryption ensures that the encrypted data is unchanged during transmission or storage. So we can say, it is like putting a special seal on a letter. If someone tries to open it before it gets to you, you'll know because the seal will be broken.

• Non repudiation − Non repudiation prevents senders from denying they sent the encrypted data. Encryption provides non-repudiation by making sure that parties cannot deny their actions or transactions. For example - It is like getting a receipt when you buy something. If you try to say you didn't buy it later, the receipt proves you did.

Benefits of Encryption

Protecting the confidentiality of digital data kept on computer systems or sent over the internet or other computer networks is the main goal of encryption. It is used to protect many types of data, like private and confidential company information, and military and public records. Encrypting data helps organizations to reduce their risk of serious penalties, long legal proceedings, revenue loss, and a damaged reputation.

Many firms use encryption not only to protect their data, but also to meet rules that require sensitive data to be protected.In the rare cases that unauthorized parties or hackers manage to access the data, encryption makes sure they are unable to decipher it. For example, sellers must encrypt consumer credit card data when it is at rest and when it is being sent over public networks in keeping with the credit Card Industry Data Security Standard.

Considerations

• With the help of encryption the data is safe from attackers, but in some cases it can stop the owners of the data from being able to access their own information.

• If encryption keys are lost or destroyed, owners might never access their data again.

• Hackers might target encryption keys instead of the data itself, making it easy for them to decode information.

• Managing encryption keys is hard because they have to be stored securely, but attackers know where to look.

• There are best practices for managing encryption keys, but they make backup and restore processes complicated.

• Retrieving and transferring keys to a new server can delay recovering data.

• Just setting up a key management system is not enough; managers need a plan to protect it.

• This includes backing up the key management system separately and arranging backups so keys are easy to get in a disaster.