Differentiate between the different types of cryptographic algorithms Essay

Differentiate between the different types of cryptographic algorithms - Essay Example These are secret key cryptography, public key cryptography and hash functions (Schneier, 2007). First, secret key algorithms are also known as symmetric key algorithms. The major feature of symmetric algorithms is the single key for encryption and decryption. This means that, the sender of the information uses a particular key to encrypt the plain text to cipher text sent to the receiver. After receiving information in the form of cipher text, the recipient uses the same key to decrypt the received message (Kessler, 2014). The single key used must be known to both sender and receiver of the message only. Therefore, the message sent is secret and only accessible by either sender or receiver. The second cryptographic algorithms are the public key cryptography. It is also known as asymmetric key cryptography. Public key cryptography involves two related keys although knowledge of one key cannot be used in determining the other key. The sender of the message uses one key to encrypt the plain text while the receiver uses another different key to decrypt the message. The public key can be revealed publicly while only the message owner uses the private key (Kessler, 2014). Lastly, in Hash functions, a computed based hash value of a fixed length is used upon a plain text making it secure and unrecoverable. In most cases, harsh algorithms provide a â€Å"digital fingerprint† of files to ensure that no alteration occur on the file. In addition, hash functions are used to encrypt passwords in many operating systems (Schneier,