Foundations of Information Security

5CRYPTOGRAPHY

Cryptography, the science of protecting the confidentiality and integrity of data, is a key part of the vast set of transactions that take place over your devices daily. You use cryptography when you have conversations on your cell phones, check your email, buy things from online retailers, and file your taxes, among other activities. Without the ability to protect the information you send over such channels, your Internet-based activities would be much riskier.

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming readable data, called plaintext or cleartext, into an unreadable form, called ciphertext. Decryption is the process ...