Understanding Public Key Cryptography

In public key cryptography, a public-private key pair is used to encrypt and decrypt data. Data encrypted with a public key, which the owner makes available to the public, can be decrypted with the corresponding private key only, which the owner keeps secret and protected. For example, if Alice wants to send Bob an encrypted message, Alice can encrypt it with Bob's public key and send it to him. Bob then decrypts the message with his private key.

The reverse process is also useful: encrypting data with a private key and decrypting it with the corresponding public key. This process is known as creating a digital signature. For example, if Alice wants to present her identity as the sender of a message, she can encrypt the message with her private key and send the message to Bob. Bob then decrypts the message with Alice's public key, thus verifying that Alice is indeed the sender.

Related Topics

• Understanding Certificates
• Understanding Self-Signed Certificates
• Understanding Certificate Revocation Lists
• Understanding Public Key Infrastructure
• Using Digital Certificates
• Using Automatically Generated Self-Signed Certificates
• Manually Generating Self-Signed Certificates

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