Computer and Information Security Handbook, 3rd Edition

8. Public-Key Cryptography

In this section we cover what is known as asymmetric encryption, which employs a pair of keys rather than one key, as used in symmetric encryption. This single-key encryption between the two parties requires each party to have its own secret key, so that as the number of parties increases so does the number of keys. In addition, the distribution of the secret key becomes unmanageable as the number of keys increases. Of course, a longtime use of the same secret key between any pair would make it more vulnerable to cryptoanalysis attack. So, to deal with these inextricable problems, a key distribution facility was born. Symmetric encryption is considered more practical in dealing with vast amounts of data consisting of ...