Understanding Cryptography Basics

Cryptography is the process of converting plaintext, which is readable text, into ciphertext, which is unreadable or encrypted text. Cryptography can be used on data that people or orga- nizations want to keep private or data that should be accessible to only certain users. In other words, cryptography is used to hide information from unauthorized users. Decryption is the process of converting ciphertext back to plaintext (also called cleartext). As a kid, you might have had a decoder ring from a box of cereal that you could use to write a letter to a friend in secret code. If your friend had the same decoder ring, he or she could decode your letter and read it.