Cyber Security: Encryption

Totay most sensitive information is managed and stored in the cloud or on connected servers and needs to be accessed online.

Encryption defends against brute force attacks on passwords and obtaining stored data.

Data encryption works by making transmitted digital data secure, both on the cloud and in computer systems.

There are two kinds of digital data:

'transmitted data or in-flight data' and

'stored digital data or data at rest'.

Modern encryption algorithms have replaced the outdated Data Encryption Standard to protect data.

These algorithms guard information and fuel security initiatives including integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation.

Action of a modern encryption algorithm

1. Authenticate the message to verify the origin.

2. Check the integrity to verify that contents have remained unchanged.

3. The non-repudiation initiative stops sends from denying legitimate activity.

Forms of Encryption

Transport Layer Security (TLS) standard

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) standard

You can tell that TLS or SSL is being used when you see 'https' at the beginning of a web page address instead of 'http', and by a padlock symbol in your browser.

Encryption in wi-fi transmission of data

A number of security techniques have been developed to protect wi-fi networks from unauthorised users and to ensure that the data transmitted across them is secure.

Encryption of data shared by wifi is built into routers: See WEP and WPA

Also see cryptography and keys

Hard Disc Encryption

Encryption refers to the process of encoding data - in disk encryption, this means that information on your computer's hard drive is transformed from plaintext to ciphertext, which makes the original information unreadable.

Hard drive encryption uses a specific algorithm, or cipher, to convert a physical disk or logical volume into an unreadable format that cannot be unlocked by anyone without the secret key or password that was used to encrypt the drive.

This prevents unauthorized people or hackers from accessing the information.

There are two main computer encryption types:

Full Disk Encryption (FDE) or whole disk encryption protects the entire volume and all files on the drive against unauthorized access.

File-Level Encryption (FLE) is an encryption method, which takes place on the file system level, enabling the encryption of data in individual files and directories.

Modern versions of Windows and macOS have built-in encryption programs: BitLocker for Windows and FileVault for macOS.

There are also a few open-source products for encryption, such as VeraCrypt, AxCrypt, and Gpg4win.