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What is Cryptography?

Cryptography is the practice of securing information by transforming it into a form that only authorized parties can read or verify. It underpins confidentiality, integrity, and authentication across almost every secure system.

At its core, cryptography relies on mathematical algorithms combined with keys. Encryption converts readable plaintext into unreadable ciphertext, and decryption reverses that process using the correct key.

  • Symmetric cryptography uses one shared key for encryption and decryption
  • Asymmetric cryptography uses a public/private key pair
  • Hashing produces a fixed-size fingerprint of data for integrity checks

Cryptography is used in HTTPS, VPNs, digital signatures, password storage, and disk encryption, making it one of the foundational building blocks of cyber security.

What does encryption do to plaintext?
Which cryptography type uses a public/private key pair?

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