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Running head: ASYMMETRIC CRYPTOGRAPHY AND SYMMETRICAL ENCRYPTION

Asymmetric Cryptography and Symmetrical Encryption
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ASYMMETRIC CRYPTOGRAPHY AND SYMMETRICAL ENCRYPTION

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Introduction
The integrity of data remains to be among the most sensitive aspect of system and
internet security infrastructures for many organizations. As such, companies continue to employ
reliable measures to safeguard their confidential and critical data and information from hackers
and unauthorized access. They attempt to achieve the highest level of data integrity owing to the
possibility of fraud occurring at any given point within the information cycle. Data encryption is
thus used as one of the foolproof techniques of achieving data integrity. This paper encompasses
a thorough review of asymmetric cryptography and symmetrical encryption.
Asymmetric cryptography, also known as public-key cryptography, uses pairs of public
keys that can be disseminated largely. It also uses private keys that are solely known to the
owner. In this regard, generating keys is based the used cryptographic algorithms that are
generated with respect to mathematical problems aimed at producing one-way functions. The
effectiveness of the system security would depend on whether the key is kept private. For the
public key, it can be distributed with no compromise to the system security. This differs from
symmetric encryption, which operates in such a way that only a single key, which is secret, is
used to encrypt and decrypt the data or information.
Like other symmetric-key algorithms, symmetric encryption utilizes the same
cryptographic keys when encrypting plaintext and decrypting cipher text. In this regard, the key
could either be identical but some kind of simple transformation could be employed.
Nevertheless, this could involve shared secrets between at least two parties. The parties can be
used in the maintenance of private information links.
Background

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The background of cryptography can be traced back to a time when two parties used to
rely on keys that they would use when exchanging information through secure methods. Such
methods were non-cryptographic and people only relied on face-to-face meetings but other could
utilize trusted couriers. The key was kept by the two parties secrete. They would then use it to
exchange encrypted messages although multiple difficulties would sometimes occur to
distributed keys. According to Jevons (1874), one-way functions are strongly related to
cryptography.
Within the 1970s, cypher systems emerged strongly with their application of symmetric
key algorithms. With the nature of symmetric encryption at the time, a single cryptographic key
was used on the underlying algorithm. The key was held by both the sender and receiver and had
to keep it a secret. It was crucial to ensure that the key in the system was supposed to be
exchanged between the parties. The faultiness of the system was that the basic requirements were
not retrieval. As such, it turned out to be unmanageable, especially considering the increasing
number of users. Besides, secure channels were increasingly becoming unavailable for the key
exchange. As cryptographic practices became keys that are more sensible started to be changed
frequently thereby calling for changes. In this regard, a separate key is often required for every
pair of users to ensure security.
In the case of public keys, the key can be spread widely and openly with the main
security requirement being for private keys, which are secretly kept by the owners. The use of
public key in this case is considerably different. One of key uses is public key encryption ensures
that the message in secured by encrypting it with a public key held by the recipient. To decrypt
the message, a user is required to have a matching private key. The receiver in this case is
assumed the key owner, who is also associated with the public key. The process is done with an

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aim of ensuring data confidentiality. Alternatively, digital signatures could be used. In digital
signature, the message is mainly accessed using the private key held by the sender. Only a user
with access to such a private key can verify the message. The verification ensures that a proof is
maintained to confirm that the message sender actually had access to such a private key. This
kind of encryption further ensures that the message is not tampered with because the signature is
bound mathematically to the message.
Regarding the symmetric encryption, which is same for the encryption and decryption, it
could utilize block cipher or stream ciphers. The stream ciphers work by combining plaintext
characters with pseudorandom cypher digit streams. All the plaintext digits are encrypted one by
one using the corresponding keystream digit. This is often done to provide digits of ciphertext
streams. Such stream ciphers are used in encrypting letters or digits making up a message one by
one. On the other hand, block ciphers tend to utilize multiple bits. They encrypt the bits as one
collective unit. In this regard, the plaintext is padded such that it becomes a multiple of block
sizes, specifically blocks of exactly 64 bits or 128 bits in recent years.
Discussion
Essentially, they key difference between asymmetric cryptography and symmetric
encryption is the nature and use of the keys that ensure security of the message between the
sender and receiver. Asymmetric cryptography makes use of paired keys, in which case public
keys are widely disseminated and paired with the owners’ private keys. On the contrary,
symmetric encryption is based on algorithms that rely on the same key to encrypt and decrypt
messages. Each one of them is meant for information security but their applications, weaknesses,
and future use among other aspects (Smirnoff & Turner, 2019).

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Application
The application of asymmetric cryptograph is basically to encrypt communication
information and data to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. The sender can send the
message using a public key of the recipient. However, the recipient would be required to decrypt
the same message using a pair of private keys. Public cryptography is also useful in digital
signature, which is meant for providing sender authentication. The signature ensures that the
message is secure and can be accessed only by the authorized parties (Smirnoff & Turner, 2019).
In its application in non-repudiation system, the cryptographic system relies on the digital
signature to make sure that none of the parties including both the sender and recipient can deny
having sent or received the message in the event disputes arise.
In the case of symmetrical encryption, its applications are mainly directed at ensuring
privacy and limiting unauthorized access. This level of security is ensured through the use of an
authentication code. The message authentication codes are added to ciphertext with a view of
ensuring that the recipient notices any changes made on the ciphertext. The authentication codes
could be made using symmetric ciphers such as cipher block chaining message authentication
code (CB-MAC). The CB-MAC entails techniques used to construct message authentication
codes from block ciphers in which ...