Cryptography is a method of storing and transmitting data in a particular form so that only those for

whom it is intended can read and process it.

Computer security, also known as cyber security or IT security, is the protection of computer
systems from the theft and damage to their hardware, software or information, as well as from
disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.
A threat, in the context of computer security, refers to anything that has the potential to cause
serious harm to a computer system.
Intrusion: To compromise a computer system by breaking the security of such a system or causing
it to enter into an insecure state.
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's
information assurance.
A firewall is a network security system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a
private network. Firewalls can be implemented as both hardware and software, or a combination of
both. WHILE Cryptography is a method of storing and transmitting data in a particular form so that
only those for whom it is intended can read and process it.

What is the difference between a private key and a secret key?

The key used in conventional encryption is typically referred to as a secret key. The two keys used
for public-key encryption are referred to as the public key and the private key.
The most important properties of public key encryption scheme are

Different keys are used for encryption and decryption. This is a property which set this
scheme different than symmetric encryption scheme.
Each receiver possesses a unique decryption key, generally referred to as his private key.
Receiver needs to publish an encryption key, referred to as his public key.
Some assurance of the authenticity of a public key is needed in this scheme to avoid
spoofing by adversary as the receiver. Generally, this type of cryptosystem involves trusted
third party which certifies that a particular public key belongs to a specific person or entity
only.
Encryption algorithm is complex enough to prohibit attacker from deducing the plaintext
from the ciphertext and the encryption (public) key.
Though private and public keys are related mathematically, it is not be feasible to calculate
the private key from the public key. In fact, intelligent part of any public-key cryptosystem
is in designing a relationship between two keys.

How can public-key encryption be used to distribute a secret key for symmetric encryption?
Digital Envelope - Bob does the following:
+ Prepare a message
+ Generate a random symmetric key that will be used this time only.
+ Encrypt that message using symmetric key encryption with the one-time key.Encrypt the one-
time key using public-key encryption with Alice's public key. - Attach the encrypted one-time key to
the encrypted message and send it to Alice.
Cryptographic systems are characterized along three independent
dimensions:

The type of operations used for transforming plaintext to ciphertext. All encryption algorithms are
based on two general principles: substitution, in which each element in the plaintext (bit, letter,
group of bits or letters) is mapped into another element, and transposition, in which elements in
the plaintext are rearranged. The fundamental requirement is that no information be lost (that is,
that all operations are reversible). Most systems, referred to as product systems, involve multiple
stages of substitutions and transpositions.

The number of keys used. If both sender and receiver use the same key, the system is referred to as
symmetric, single-key, secret-key, or conventional encryption. If the sender and receiver use
different keys, the system is referred to as asymmetric, two-key, or public-key encryption.

The way in which the plaintext is processed. A block cipher processes the input one block of
elements at a time, producing an output block for each input block. A stream cipherprocesses the
input elements continuously, producing output one element at a time, as it goes along. (William
Stallings 2005).

RSA
RSA is an algorithm used by modern computers to encrypt and decrypt messages. It is an
asymmetric cryptographic algorithm. Asymmetric means that there are two different keys. This is
also called public key cryptography, because one of them can be given to everyone. The other key
must be kept private. It is based on the fact that finding the factors of an integer is hard (the
factoring problem). RSA stands for Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, who first publicly
described it in 1978.