In today’s digital world, pretty much all
information is available at the touch of your fingers online. As a matter of
fact, even information that you would rather keep private or have never shared
with anyone could be a simple Google search away.
This is why as technology has become more
advanced and hackers have found their workarounds, cybersecurity has risen as a
dominant field in the online space. With that, encryption has become integral
to the secure passage and storage of information for billions of users who
share their information online, whether to make a purchase, answer a
questionnaire, and more.
So, what exactly is encryption? In
cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding a
message or information in a way that only authorized parties can access it and
those who are not authorized cannot.
In this blog, we’re covering everything you
need to know about encryption, including how it came to be, where it is used,
and how it works. Let’s get started!
Encryption: A Brief History
Believe it or not, encryption has been around
since nearly the beginning of time.
The first methods of encryption recorded were
in 600 B.C. when the ancient Spartans dominated the lands. The Spartans would
use a device called a scytale, which consisted of a leather strap wrapped
around a wooden rod, to send secret messages during battle. The letters on the
leather strip are meaningless when it's unwrapped, and only if the recipient
had the correctly sized rod would the message make sense.
In 1553, the first cipher (writing in code) is
invented, using a proper encryption key that is able to crack it. This code is
an agreed-upon keyword that the recipient needs to know if he or she wants to
decode the message.
The Playfair Cipher was invented in 1854,
which encrypts pairs of letters instead of single ones, making it harder to
crack. A more powerful predecessor, the Enigma machine, was invented in 1917.
It encoded a substitution table that was changed every time a new character was
typed and would not get cracked until 1932, playing a key role in the success
of WWII for the Allies.
By 1945, cryptography stepped into the scene
with the publishing of a popular paper titled, “A mathematical theory of cryptography."
The first company to use encryption was IBM in the early 1970s. The company
created a block cipher to protect customer data. In 1973, the U.S. adopted it
as a national standard called the Data Encryption Standard (DES). It remained
in use until it was cracked in 1997.
In 2000, the DES was replaced by the Advanced
Encryption Standard, or AES, which was discovered through a competition open to
the public. Today it continues to be in use and is available globally.
The challenge comes with the growth of the
online space as more data and services enter the cloud, increasing the
possibility of a threat to security. Cryptographers are constantly evolving and
creating solutions to this challenge.
Who Uses Encryption?
What types of data require encryption? Statistics show that payment-related data has
the highest levels of encryption by corporate companies worldwide, followed
closely by financial records.
Encryption is the best possible form of
security out there for online data. Other reasons why an enterprise may use
encryption include to protect:
●
Employee/HR data
●
Intellectual property
●
Customer information
●
Non-financial business information
●
Healthcare information
Encryption was almost exclusively used by
governments, the military, and large enterprises until the late 1970s. Today,
these groups continue to use encryption — however, it is now more available to
the general public across various industries. The individual person can
encrypt a personal piece of technology like a laptop if they had the capacity
to do so.
How Does Encryption Work?
In computing, unencrypted data is also known
as plaintext, and encrypted data is called ciphertext. The formulas used to
encode and decode messages are called encryption algorithms or ciphers.
There are three major components to any
encryption system:
●
The data
●
The encryption engine
●
The key management
If you’re creating encryption, the first thing
to do is to decide which cipher will best disguise the meaning of the message
and what variable to use as a key to ensuring the encoded message is unique.
The most widely used types of ciphers fall into two categories: symmetric and
asymmetric.
Why is encryption important? Encryption helps
for a few reasons:
●
Confidentiality: Will encode the
content of a message
●
Authentication: Identifies and
verifies the origin of the message
●
Integrity: Ensures the content of
the message has not been modified and is original as it was sent
●
Nonrepudiation: Prevents senders
from denying they sent an encrypted message.
Encryption is a powerful tool in ensuring the
safety of information in the digital space. Hackers have become increasingly
advanced in their methods, and no one is safe. Whether you’re a single person
or leader of an organization, make sure the proper encryption security measures
are in place to protect your important data.
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