Essay On Cryptography And Steganography Techniques - Importance, Types, And Challenges." (70 Characters)

Importance of Cryptography Technology in Securing Data Communication Channels

Discuss About The Cryptography And Steganography Techniques.

Cryptography technology has gained importance in recent years as it secures the data before transmitting overt the network. The sensitive information gets transmitted over the networking channels and it is accessible from anywhere. There are possibilities of data leakage over the network which violates the confidentiality of data. Cryptography is a way that translates the data in a form that is not readable.  

Cryptography procedures are used to enhance the security of data with the goal that organization can believe that they can access the data from anywhere without the fear of getting the actual data read due to the use of cryptography innovation. It is essentially used to get secure communication as it is important to keep the data integrated and available (Hemalatha & George, 2015). A large portion of the data is shared over web, thus it has the possibility to get accessible by some third party. To stay away from such cases cryptography is used as it gives confirmation that the information is sent by rectify user and furthermore ensure that data is conveyed to valid user. Some basic functions that are used in cryptography strategy are encryption and decryption.

Encryption implies changing the actual content of information in a form that is not understood by individuals. The information could be read only when it is decrypted by the valid user and this could be done only by using secret key (Olijnyk, 2018). Thus it can be stated that cryptography may sure that communication happen between valid sender and receiver and information is not readable by any third party in between.  

There are fundamentally three types of cryptography methods and they are used at various circumstances. Symmetric cryptography, asymmetric cryptography and hash function are three structures having different capabilities but all make utilization of a secret key (Mahto, Khan & Yadav, 2016). The quality of the cryptography algorithm is specifically identified with the length of key. The longer the length of key the harder it would it be for the hackers to break the key. In case of symmetric cryptography for encrypting and decrypting the data same key need to be used. This is difficult in some cases to share the key to the actual receiver as it might be located in faraway location.  Thus it makes sure that data will be decrypted only by the valid user when he will receive the key.  The benefit of utilizing this technique is speed of transmission. There are a few issues related with the symmetric cryptography that is each transaction needs a different secret key (Rajyalaxmi, Krishna, Anusha, Khan & Madhumati, 2017). Thus it is difficult to generate the secret key for every communication.  It makes sure that legitimacy of the data is not violated but the only issue of sharing the way is distance.

Types of Cryptography Methods and Key Length

Asymmetric cryptography uses the strategy of using two keys one is kept as public and other as private key (MitaMitali & Sharma, 2014). It gives higher security if compared to symmetric cryptography as it guarantees that validness of information is met. In this technique sharing of secret keys is easy as there are two different keys. It also enhances the transmission of data packets but it uses   more number of assets (Bokefode Jayant, Ubale Swapnaja, Pingale Subhash, Karande Kailash & Apate Sulabha, 2015). Cryptography technology has been expanded in recent years as it has removed danger of data being leaked.  Cryptography technology has raised the issue of copyright and criminal activities have also increased as hackers how try to capture the key by performing mysterious activities.

These technologies have also been used for creating secure VPN network. It makes use of secret key which make sure that message is decrypted by a correct end user (Rani, Mary & Euphrasia, 2016). Cryptography techniques make sure that secure communication take place over a network and this is accomplished by encrypting the message. Asymmetric cryptography involves encoding the original message with the help of public key and then transmitting the data packet over the communication channel. Once the data packet has been received by a valid receiver they make use of private key to decrypt the message. The message can only be decoded by the person having the private key thus it make sure that message is read only by the correct user. This guarantee that data will be read only by the intended user and information remains confidential and authenticated (Kaur & Malhotra, 2016).

Cryptography techniques have improved the overall security of communication channels by making sure that data remains confidential. By the use of this technique it has made eavesdropping attack difficult to be performed.

The use of cryptography techniques has been expanded in every sector and there are various applications that have used cryptography techniques in their mechanism. This has been widely used because of the security level provided by it especially used in online communications while transferring personal or sensitive data. Not only in personal communications but have been widely used for business concern or in large multinational companies (Kapoor & Yadav, 2016). It makes sure that while transferring the data packets over the large network the data remains secured and there are no chances of information to be leaked or attacked. As there are numerous hackers waiting over the network to steal the sensitive data but cryptography make sure that even if the data packets have been captured by hackers they won’t be able to read the actual information (Saranya, Mohanapriya & Udhayan, 2014). Thus cryptography has become an important part for data security.

Challenges in Cryptography Technology

• Online transactions have become possible over the network due to the use of cryptography.
• This has been used by large organisation as it avoid the third party users to access their information
• It is used in online storage of data packets as it automatically encodes the information in a form that is not readable.
• One of the widely used applications of cryptography is digital signature as it provides authentication to users and increases the trust.
• It is also used in time stamping as it assures that information is delivered in a predefined time limit.
• It has also been used in electronic voting which makes the manual work easy.

There are various consequences that occur in a network due to cryptography. One of eh major challenge is interruption by third party user that makes the information or inaccessible by the valid user. This violates the rule of availability of data packets as the hackers disable the communication between the actual users and that can cause huge loss to an organization. Other challenge that occurs over the channel due to cryptography is interception that permits some unauthorized user to gain access to the information by using some false routes. It spoils the confidentiality of data packets. The network is not secure and that increases the chances of attacks (Upadhyaya, 2015). Cryptography is a very complex process as it requires managing the secret keys properly as complete security relies on keys. It is an expensive process and also makes sure of large number of resources which in turn increase the cost.

Cryptography technique is not scalable to large distance if using symmetric technique because it becomes difficult for exchanging the keys. Cloud computing has also gained popularity due to the use of cryptography. Cryptography techniques need to be regulated on regular basis otherwise some attacker might modify the encoded data and that may result in delivering irrelevant data packet to the receiver.

Data need to be selected because all the information cannot be encoded without the permission. Before applying encryption to data packets the audit standards and compliance need to be understood. Every organization has different standards thus it becomes difficult to manage the information. Key management is one of the biggest challenges in cryptography technology as these operations need to be bided properly so that identity is not lost and actual data has been recovered by decrypting it (Duan, Wang, Li, Sheng, Wang & Zhang, 2017). The other drawback that could be present by using cryptography is speed of transmission. The speed decreases as compared to the old traditional method. Cryptography sometimes makes it difficult for the valid user to access the information. Other than that cryptography is not capable to handle the situation of complete breakdown of information. Apart from that applying cryptography surges the cost and sometimes it do not provide protection against the vulnerabilities that may occur in the system due to poor design of network protocols and procedures (Tutorialspoint, 2015).

Cryptography has already been used in the modern world but it offers few advantages as well as disadvantages. The advancement in technology has laid to the discovery of elliptic curve cryptography which makes sure that encryption and decryption takes place in less amount of time and also allows higher data to be passed over the network (Desmedt, 2016).
Other phenomena which emerged in this technique are quantum computation that is used to store the data in the form of quantum superposition.  This allows the computation of numbers to be done in faster than the old method. The future of this technology is very bright as it allows the data to be secured from attackers by using secret keys that are used to secure the data over wide ranging network. This is done by making large scale implementation of cryptography possible and practical (Trilightzone, 2016). Cyber security is progressing and the reason behind that is somewhere cryptography as they provide the future of reality by sending data securely over long distances using quantum physics.
Cryptography is an important component in the security of future as it provides security of data from hackers and they ensure that our system is secure and there are no chances to have potential side-channel attack. Day by day the data will increase on the networks, increasing data on the internet increases the chances of attacks (Choo, Domingo-Ferrer & Zhang, 2016). Thus to make sure that actual data is not relived to the unauthorized user cryptography need to be used. Hence, clearly it can be stated that the need of cryptography will grow data by day as the main focus is on securing the data.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cryptography Technology

There are three techniques used in cryptographic algorithms, all the three algorithms differ from each other on the basis they encryption and decryption technique.
Secret Key Cryptography: In this for doing encryption a single key is used for both encryption and decryption of data packets. This technique is also called a symmetric encryption. It was primarily used for maintain the privacy and confidentiality of information. As it shares same key for encrypting and decrypting it is difficult to transfer the key to long distance. If receiver is located in far way region it will difficult to transfer the key and it takes lot of time (Sasi & Sivanandam, 2015).

Public Key Cryptography: It is another method that uses separate keys for encryption and decryption. If one key is used for encryption then different key would be used for decryption. This technique is also called asymmetric encryption. It was primarily used for authentication and for key exchange.
Hash Function: It makes use of mathematical formulas for transforming the information in a chipper text format and make use of digital fingerprint. It was primary used for maintaining the authenticity.

The issues that have been addressed in the current literature is that cryptography need to handled properly so that third party users do not enter the channels and modify the encrypted code. Once the encrypted code is modified the file will not be able to get decrypted which may cause loss of important data. Sometimes there are chances of data leakage as the information is secured but the channels through which data transfer is not secured (Vijayakumar, Indupriya & Rajashree, 2016). Thus securing the information does not completely secure the entire system so network security need to be addressed as well. Other issue is that in cryptography security relies completely on the keys thus if in some cases keys are lost the entire data will be lost which can act as a huge loss to the organisation. The keys need to be protected to make sure that data will be protected.
These are few issues which have not been addressed in the current scenario. Thus in the future cryptography will come in advanced version that will make sure that are some alternatives to protect the keys as well. According to me these issues are very critical like if I am performing symmetric cryptography and receiver is located in some other country so transferring the keys to the receiver is a time consuming as well as difficult job. Thus it is necessary to take care of secret keys along with the network. In today's world cryptography technology is used at peak as it provides pretty good privacy services, with increasing use of cryptography it makes difficult for the user to keep it secured.
Additionally it can be stated that it is very important to maintain security of the data packets because they contain private information of various organisations, government as well as personal data which cannot be leaked (Suri  & Singh, 2016). Cryptographic algorithms are designed in a way so that digital threats cannot hit the network and helps in operating in a well-defined manner. These security models make sure that integrity, confidentiality and availability is maintained.

Future of Cryptography Technology

Cryptography assures that while data is transmitted over the network authenticity, confidently and integrity is maintained. The main purpose of cryptography technique is to make sure that all these three parameters are fulfilled. It also takes care that authentication of information is met that means information is delivered actual user (Utexas, 2017). Cryptography focuses on preserving confidentiality of data by making the actual data set inaccessible to third part user. Encryption and decryption is the only way that assures that data has been delivered and received from valid user.

There are various attacks that a network might face due to use of cryptograph technique. Some of them are cipher text attack, plain text attack, side channel attack, timing attack, brute force attack and birthday attack. These attacks try to capture the keys and break the encoded data packets (Tripathi & Agrawal, 2014). They might time longer time to break the key but there are chances if the keys get broken they can read the actual data packet. These attacks are also used to find collisions that happen in the hash function.

Conclusion

It can be conclude from this report that the use of cryptography has increased and is widely used in various sectors. Cryptography technique is very useful as it make sure that secure communication takes place and no untrusted user can access the actual information. Apart from the benefits there are various challenges that are associated with this technique. A brief discussion has been done in this report in all direction on the cryptography technology. Thus could be concluded that in today’s world cryptography technology act as a savior in terms of protecting data from hackers as it make use of secret keys.

References

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