Cryptography
Security+ 🏆 • Cryptography 🔒
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Difficulty: free
Definition
Cryptography is the science of protecting information by using mathematical techniques such as encryption, hashing, and digital signatures. In cybersecurity, cryptography helps keep data confidential, ensures it has not been altered, and proves who created or approved it.
Examples
- A website uses TLS to encrypt traffic so attackers cannot read credentials in transit.
- A password database stores password verifiers using a slow hashing algorithm so stolen hashes are harder to crack.
Discover 🔎
Cryptography is one of the foundations of modern security. It protects everyday activities like logging into accounts, sending messages, paying online, and updating software. Most security professionals do not need to be mathematicians, but they do need to understand what cryptography can guarantee, what it cannot guarantee, and where people commonly misuse it.
Remember: Cryptography is a tool. It protects data and decisions, but it cannot fix weak access control, poor design, or untrusted endpoints.
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