Designing Network Security Second Edition

Chapter 1. Basic Cryptography

This chapter details the basic building blocks and fundamental issues you need to understand before moving on to more complex security technologies. Cryptography is a basis for secure communications; it is, therefore, important that you understand three basic cryptographic functions: symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption, and one-way hash functions. Most current authentication, integrity, and confidentiality technologies derive from these three cryptographic functions. This chapter also introduces digital signatures as a practical example of how you can combine asymmetric encryption with one-way hash algorithms to provide data authentication and integrity.

Authentication, authorization, and key management issues ...