Encryption software
Encryption software is
Classification
There are many software products which provide encryption. Software encryption uses a
Another way to classify software encryption is to categorize its purpose. Using this approach, software encryption may be classified into software which encrypts "data in transit" and software which encrypts "data at rest". Data in transit generally uses public key ciphers, and data at rest generally uses symmetric key ciphers.
Symmetric key ciphers can be further divided into stream ciphers and block ciphers. Stream ciphers typically encrypt plaintext a bit or byte at a time, and are most commonly used to encrypt real-time communications, such as audio and video information. The key is used to establish the initial state of a keystream generator, and the output of that generator is used to encrypt the plaintext. Block cipher algorithms split the plaintext into fixed-size blocks and encrypt one block at a time. For example, AES processes 16-byte blocks, while its predecessor DES encrypted blocks of eight bytes.
There is also a well-known case where PKI is used for data in transit of data at rest.
Data in transit
Data in transit is data that is being sent over a computer network. When the data is between two endpoints, any confidential information may be vulnerable. The payload (confidential information) can be encrypted to secure its confidentiality, as well as its integrity and validity.[5]
Often, the data in transit is between two entities that do not know each other - such as in the case of visiting a website. As establishing a relationship and securely sharing an encryption key to secure the information that will be exchanged, a set of roles, policies, and procedures to accomplish this has been developed; it is known as the
Data at rest
Data at rest refers to data that has been saved to
Encryption may be applied at different layers in the storage stack. For example, encryption can be configured at the
With full disk encryption, the entire disk is encrypted (except for the bits necessary to boot or access the disk when not using an unencrypted boot/preboot partition).
Transit of data at rest
When there is a need to securely transmit data at rest, without the ability to create a secure connection, user space tools have been developed that support this need. These tools rely upon the receiver publishing their public key, and the sender being able to obtain that public key. The sender is then able to create a symmetric key to encrypt the information, and then use the receiver's public key to securely protect the transmission of the information and the symmetric key. This allows secure transmission of information from one party to another. [citation needed]
Performance
The performance of encryption software is measured relative to the speed of the CPU. Thus, cycles per byte (sometimes abbreviated cpb), a unit indicating the number of
See also
- Cryptographic Protocol
- Public Key (Asymmetric) Algorithms
- Symmetric Algorithms
- Transport Layer Security
- Comparison of disk encryption software
- Defense strategy (computing)
- Ransomware: Malicious software using encryption
References
- ^ Thakur, Dinesh. "Cryptography - What is Cryptography?".
- ^ "What is encryption? - Definition from WhatIs.com". SearchSecurity. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
- ^ "Why We Encrypt - Schneier on Security".
- S2CID 377667.
- ^ "Guide to Cryptography - OWASP".
- ^ Villanueva, John Carl. "Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption".
- ^ "Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Encryption - CipherCloud". 4 October 2013. Archived from the original on 15 August 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
- ^ "How Whole Disk Encrypytion Works" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-23. Retrieved 2017-03-27.
- ^ "How to encrypt a single partition in Linux - TechRepublic".
- ^ https://www.jetico.com/web_help/bcve3_enterprise/html/01_introduction/02_what_is_ve.htm Volume Encryption
- ^ "How IT Works: Encrypting File System".
- ^ "PDS Software Solutions LLC". Archived from the original on 2018-07-19. Retrieved 2017-03-27.
- ^ "Processor allocation".
- ^ "Engineering comparison of SHA-3 candidates". Archived from the original on 2019-10-13. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
- ^ "Businesses fail to apply encryption technology effectively". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
External links
- Encryption software at Curlie