New Training: Cryptography Fundamentals

In this 10-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Keith Barker summarizes and provides examples of basic cryptographic methods, techniques, and uses. Watch this new Cyber Security training.

Learn Cyber Security with one of these courses:

• Secure Design and Architecture Fundamentals for Enterprise Environments Training

• CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601)

This training includes:

• 10 videos

• 51 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Intro to Cryptography Fundamentals

• Cryptography Overview

• Symmetric Encryption

• Asymmetric Encryption

• Hashing

• Key Exchange

• Digital Signatures

• Hiding Data with Steganography

• Crypto Considerations

• Quiz & Review

When Should You Use Asymmetric Encryption?

Encryption has become a de facto standard for IT security, but encryption comes in many forms. At its highest-level encryption can be divided between symmetric and asymmetric encryption schemes. When should you use asymmetric encryption instead of a symmetric encryption scheme, though?

Asymmetric encryption is a method that uses both a public and private key to handle encryption. Both the public and private keys are tied together and public keys can encrypt data that can only be decrypted with the corresponding private key. The inverse is also true. The private key can encrypt data, and the corresponding public key can decrypt that data. As the names suggest, the public key can be freely distributed while the private key should be kept a secret.

Asymmetric encryption algorithms are best used for things like communication. A popular example of this is using PGP for sending an email. In this case, anyone can send an encrypted email to someone, but only the person receiving that email can read it. Asymmetric encryption schemes can have other use cases as well, though.