Which are the different types and components of cryptography?

Cryptography is a science of secure communication between hosts. It includes securing the message which can be only be read by person with the right code. The process is called encryption. And the process in which secure message is decoded is called decryption.

There are different types of cryptography - depending on the type of methods being used in the communication. Three popular types of cryptography techniques are - public key, private key and symmetric key cryptography. In each case of public key cryptography, the content is secured with PGP key and you need the same key to read the message.

The public key content doesn't have to secret and can be shared with others. Such cryptography is only used for the content that requires security from some sources that doesn't allow open communication.

In case of private key cryptography the content is secured and the key is only shared in between two or more private parties.

In case of symmetric cryptography, the same key is used for the encryption and decryption. This was used in old method for the encryption. This is obsolete method for secure communication.

There is also another improvement in the cryptography industry known as "Steganography". In this method of secure communication the data is hidden within another content. For example simple nature image could have mp3 file hidden inside. Such method of encryption is very popular and harder to break for those who are into security analysis.

DES is an old method of data encryption. It was similar to the symmetric data encryption. In such type of data security the same key was used for encryption and decryption.

RSA is another cryptosystem which is rather slow algorithm that keeps public and private key separate. Each type of key has different mode for decryption. Public key may be used for encryption but the decryption key is made secret. Most of the programming languages such as R, Python, Java, Ruby allows encryption using RSA, SHA and MD5.

Cryptography is very vast field with new improvements being made every year. You can learn a lot more by following the Cryptography journals and IEEE security journals.

Cryptography is the system of achieving the secure communication between the users or user groups. These are actually methods of securing the information from being accessed by any other persons than those authorised to access it.
Cryptography was used in the form of encryption. Encryption is the term used to denote the technique of converting an information into something illegible. You would need a special algorithm to encrypt the data. Converting it back into the original message is called Decryption. But, the current usages have taken it beyond just being encryption and decryption.

Symmetric cryotography
It was the technique used In the days gone by. It Involved the same key being used by both sender and receiver of the message. Th is not used much in current times, yet it was the sole method of cryptography that was used till the '70s.
The issue with this system is the vulnerability of the key. You will need to send it to the person intended to access the information by a secure method. The key can be accessed and copied by someone in the line.
Public key cryptography
Public key cryptography involves creation of two keys - a public key and a private key that is paired to the public key. The public key is used to encrypt the data while the decryption will only be possible with private key. While the public key is freely shared among, the private key paired to the public one stays secret.
This is the most widely used cryptography technique. Since it involves a private key paired with the public one, it becomes more secure.


This type of encryption is used in high security scenarios. The sender and receiver have the same pad - Just Like in the case of Symmetric cryptography, once the pad is used - it will be destroyed. Such kind of cryptography is used while transmitting national secrets.

Hash functions
This is a simpler method of securing information being shared. It does not have any key. Instead, it uses a hash function depending on the message being sent.

Cryptography is a technique for encrypting the plain text into cipher text for the security purposes.Cryptography is an art of maths and science in which we encoded the the text into different formats which is not a human readable and in this way there is very less chance to steal the important data while transmitting along networks to other computers or devices.

There are two types of key used for encrypting and decrypting the text i.e. public key and private key.
Two types of Cryptography Symmetric key cryptography which tells that both encryption and decryption using same key that's why it is named as symmetric key cryptography .
Asymmetric key cryptography uses different key for encrypting and decrypting the text i.e publickey for encryption and private key for decryption.

Crytography is the technical term for secret writing.This is a technique which is generally implemented for attaining security in networking and data communication. Cryptography is used for Integrity, Confidentiality, Authentication and Non repudiation of the data a message carries. In Cryptography the original text is changed into an unintelligible format, to ensure that the outsiders could not read and understand it and the security of the message is maintained. These are the following components of Cryptography.

Plaintext-The original form of data or text is termed plaintext.

Ciphertext-Here the original message is changed into another format that is unreadable using a set of algorithm.

Key-It is referred as a number on which the algorithm is based upon.

Encryption algorithm-This is a part of algorithm which is used at the sender's side to change the Plaintext to the unreadable Ciphertext. This is to protect the data from the unauthentic receivers.

Decryption algorithm-This component is used at the receivers side to retrieve the original message that has to be changed from the ciphertext to plaintext.

Hashed message Authentication code-These are the copies of the key that are added with the data and the combination is used as hashed. This is done with the usage of the key with less hash functionality.

Digital signature- The concept of Digital signature lies in authenticating the identity of the sender of a message. It is a verifying process of the sender's identity.