What Does Encrypted Mean – All You Need to Know!

Well if this is the first time you’ve come across the terms “Encryption” or “Encrypted”, then this short blog is definitely for you. Encryption is a technique being used for securing or protecting the sensitive information be it your bank account passwords or your credit card details. Here in this short blog, we will learn some basics about encryption like what does encrypted mean, what is encryption, its types, and why is it important?

In today’s digital world, you must be surely having accounts with some online platforms or any e-commerce platform. But have you ever wondered, how are these platforms keeping your sensitive information(i.e. bank details, account passwords) safe? The answer to all your queries is simple. ENCRYPTION!

Huge amounts of personal information is available and managed online via cloud or servers. In fact, every business involves the use of personal data and other sensitive information, hence it’s always important to know & understand how to keep the data encrypted & safe. “Encryption is the door to knock on”.

What Is Encryption & How Does It Work?

So, what does encrypted mean? Encryption can be referred to as scrambling of plaintext into an encrypted or unreadable format known as “ciphertext”. Plaintext can be your normal text messages or your emails which can be easily understood by everyone, whereas, Ciphertext is the unreadable or the scrambled version of the plaintext which cannot be understood if someone illegal or unauthorized gets access to your information. This process ensures data stays securely on your computer and is successfully transmitted through a network like the Internet.

Once the information is received by the recipient, the ciphered text needs to be deciphered or the encrypted text needs to be decrypted, for which, the use of a cipher or an encryption algorithm is done to bring back the scrambled text into its original form. The sender and the receiver should have a “secret encryption key” & a collection of algorithms that will scramble & unscramble data back to its original format. This whole process is known as “decryption”. 

What Are The Different Kinds Of Encryption?

After studying what does encrypted means, it’s time to know the types of encryption. The encryption key can be said as a series of numbers that is used for data encryption/decryption and is created with the help of algorithms where each key is random and unique in its own ways. There are 2 types of encryption techniques – Symmetric & Asymmetric encryption. Below you can find a short description of both the techniques which will give you a fair enough idea.

• Symmetric encryption:

  In this encryption technique, the same set of keys is used by the sender & the receiver for the encryption and decryption purposes, thus, is much faster than asymmetric encryption. Advanced Encryption Standard or AES encryption is one of the most popular and widely used examples of symmetric data encryption. Symmetric encryption is sometimes also referred to as secret key encryption, symmetric ciphers or private-key cryptography.

• Asymmetric encryption:

  In this encryption technique, two different keys are used which are logically linked with each other. One key is used for the encryption purposes while the other key is used for decryption purposes. One of the keys is kept private while the other is publicly shared. Hence, asymmetric encryption is also known as the public-key encryption or public-key cryptography. The Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) encryption algorithm is one of the most popular and widely used examples of asymmetric data encryption.

All the encryption techniques or algorithms consist of 3 components i.e.

1. Data to be protected/encrypted,

2. The encryption algorithm,

3. Key management process.

Importance of Encryption

By now you must have had a fair enough idea of what does encrypted mean, how does encryption works & types of encryption. Here we’ll learn why encryption is important?

• Encryption is a very basic and crucial aspect of data privacy and security and plays a major role. The process of encryption helps you secure your data stored on your computer systems or the data transmitted over any network like the Internet. 
• Encryption helps you protect your data from illegal or unauthorized access and can prevent your data from brute force attacks or any cyber attacks as your data gets encrypted. Encryption prevents data breaches, data leaks by encrypting the communications exchanged between the sender & the receiver.  Encryption is widely used by OTT platform and Elearning platform to safeguard their content, to know more about this, refer to out blog on video encryption.
• Encryption not only helps you protect your sensitive data but can also help to prove that the information is authentic and received from the point of origin it was supposed to be. With the help of encryption, it can also be verified that the information hasn’t been altered during the transmission and is received from the actual origin only.

Next Steps

With this, we come to the end of our short blog. By now you must have learned some important aspects of encryption like what does encrypted mean, what is encryption, its types, and why is it important?

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