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Glossary Security

Encryption

Encryption is the process of scrambling data with a key so that only someone with the right key can read it.

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In more detail

Symmetric encryption (AES, ChaCha20) uses one shared key and is fast, so it protects the bulk of data. Asymmetric encryption (Public-key cryptography) uses a public/private pair and solves how to share keys. Data can be encrypted at rest (on disk) and in transit (over TLS). Encryption is reversible with the key; a Hash is not.

Try these tools

AES Text Encryption

Encrypt a message with a password using AES-256-GCM and a PBKDF2-SHA-256 key (600,000 rounds), then decrypt it later with the same password.

Key Pair Generator

Create Ed25519, ECDSA (P-256, P-384) or RSA (2048-4096) key pairs with Web Crypto and export them as PEM (SPKI and PKCS#8) and as an.

See also

  • Glossary Public-key cryptography
    Public-key (asymmetric) cryptography uses a pair of linked keys: a public key anyone can have, and a private key kept secret.
  • Glossary Hash
    A hash is the fixed-length fingerprint a hash function computes from any input; the same input always gives the same hash.
  • Glossary TLS
    TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the cryptographic protocol that encrypts and authenticates connections, including HTTPS, email and VPNs.
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