Cryptography Types

Symmetric encryption

Often called secret key encryption, uses a shared key and the same encryption algorithm to encrypt and decrypt a message.

Asymmetric encryption

Often called public key encryption, uses two different, but related, keys for the encryption algorithm. To encrypt a message, both a public key and a private key are used. The sender uses the public key to encrypt the message and the recipient uses the private key to decrypt the encrypted message.

Hash function

A hash function is a one-way encryption used to authenticate information. The information is “hashed,” and then transmitted with the hash value. The destination peer can perform the same hash, and then compare the result to the transmitted hash value. If they match, the probability is high that the data is complete and unchanged.