SSCP Systems Security Certified Practitioner All-in-One Exam Guide

Exploring Asymmetric Encryption

Asymmetric encryption (also known as public key cryptography) uses two matched keys known as public and private keys. There are a few important points to understand related to these keys:

• Anything encrypted with the public key can be decrypted only with the matching private key.

• Anything encrypted with the private key can be decrypted only with the matching public key.

• The private key is always kept private and never shared.

• The public key is freely shared and publicly available.

Asymmetric encryption requires a public key infrastructure (PKI, described in more detail later in this chapter) to create, manage, distribute, validate, and revoke certificates. A public key is embedded in a freely shared certificate. ...