Encryption Methods

In cryptology, encryption is a technique which safeguards essential data from any third party interference or outside attacks, which could have harmful effects for the user of the data. Generally, encryption uses a key, which is held by the sender of the data, and the receiver of the data, so that it could be decrypted and read after receiving. In other words, encryption is the process of encoding a given message so that only authorized people can have access to it. In basic cryptographic practices, there are different encryption methods which could be used to encrypt a given piece of data. Some methods are new and have been used for ages, whereas others might be recently developed and more effective.

Types of encryption methods:

To avoid this, there are encryption techniques available. Most of these are different from each other by key size and strength of encryption. Three of the most commonly used encryption techniques are:

• Triple DES: Triple-DES stands for Triple Data Encryption Standard, often abbreviated as 3DES. This algorithm was developed to replace the already existing algorithm DES (Data Encryption Standard), which was proving out to be less secure due to its widened use. Hackers had figured out a way to defeat and break the encryption of DES, which had resulted in its subsequent replacement. Triple DES uses three individual keys with 56bits each, which makes the total key length to be 168 bit. Each of the keys has its own set of encryption, which needs to be decrypted individually to decode the message entirely. Hence, hacking is a relatively tough job (Toapanta et al.,2019).
• RSA: Rivest-Shamir-Adleman encryption is an asymmetric encryption method, as it uses two key to encrypt and decrypt the data, namely public key and private key. The public key encrypts the data, whereas a private key is used to decrypt it so that the message is readable. It is usually considered for sending data over the internet. The asymmetric nature of it creates considerable confusion between outside third party unauthorized users who try to hack into the data and steal it (Liu et al.,2018).
• AES: Advance Encryption Software or AES is widely used encryption tool used by numerous governments and private bodies to encrypt their data. AES usually uses 128-bit software and is exceptionally effective under it. It is also available in 192 and 156 bits of cipher for heavy-duty encryptions. Because it is effective against any attacks (except brute force), AES has been deemed as standard encryption software by many (Banik, Bogdanov, & Regazzoni, 2016).

Conclusion:

With the advance evolution of cyber-attacks, it has become crucial to adapt suitable encryption software to safeguard critical data. Failure in this might result in the data getting compromised. As evident by the above discussion, every encryption algorithm has a distinctive feature from one another and comes with their own set of advantages over one another. Hence, it is up to the user to choose their decryption algorithm based on their preference and nature of the data to be encoded.