BizTalk™ Unleashed

Understanding Security Basics

To begin, you should become familiar with a few terms. Understanding these concepts is the first step toward understanding just how easy it is to secure your applications.

Table 22.1 shows some basic security terms and what they mean.

Table 22.1. Basic Terms and Definitions for Security

Term	Definition
Algorithm	A mathematical equation determining how a message is encrypted or decrypted.
Encryption	The process of scrambling information to make it unreadable or unusable.
Certificate	A “key” that identifies you or carries a public key for secure communications.
Key	Keys are basically passwords. In most cases there is a public key and a private key. A private key allows encryption/decryption in the event a public key is lost ...