Encryption Software: Protecting Digital Information
Encryption software utilizes cryptography to safeguard digital data from unauthorized access. It's categorized based on the type of cipher used: public key (asymmetric) and symmetric key. Public key encryption is suitable for encrypting data in transit, while symmetric key encryption is used for data at rest.
Data in transit refers to data being transmitted over networks, which can be vulnerable to eavesdropping. Encryption ensures confidentiality, integrity, and validity by encrypting the payload. Public key infrastructure (PKI) facilitates establishing secure connections and exchanging symmetric keys. Methods for encrypting data in transit include IPsec, SCP, SFTP, SSH, OpenPGP, and HTTPS.
Data at rest is stored on persistent storage devices and is typically encrypted using symmetric keys. Encryption can be applied at various layers: disk, partition, volume, file system, or within applications. Full disk encryption secures the entire disk, while partition and volume encryption protect specific sections of the disk. File system encryption encrypts all files within a file system.
Transit of data at rest involves securely transmitting encrypted data without creating a secure connection. User space tools, such as GPG, enable the encryption of data with a symmetric key and the use of a public key to securely transmit the encrypted data and symmetric key to the recipient.
Encryption software performance is measured in cycles per byte (cpb), indicating the number of clock cycles required per byte of data processed. Businesses need to balance the desire for encryption with the impact on performance and scalability, especially in applications that handle large volumes of data.