The Components of an Encryption System

Shalom Solomon 2nd July, 2021

With the increasing reliance of government agencies, financial institutions, big corporations, businesses and individuals on digital devices to store data and information.

It has become imperative that these devices not only store or transfer data, but also protect the data from falling into the wrong hands.

It is based on this that systems have been developed and to help these entities and individuals secure their information from unauthorized access; basically hackers.

One of the major tools used to effectively ensure that your data is secured is encryption.

Encryption is a form of cryptography that uses ciphers to make your data unintelligible to those who are unauthorized to have access to it.

The ciphers are algorithms that contain encryption codes and a key to decrypt the encrypted data.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Components of an Encryption System

An encryption system is made up of these basic components:

The Encryption Engine:

The encryption engine is the mathematical engine or system that uses set algorithms and the encryption or decryption keys to encrypt or decrypt your data as the case may be.

The Key Management:

The key Management in an encryption architecture consists of the system that controls access to the decryption and the encryption key.

In some cases, the encryption key is the same with the decryption key these are known as Symmetric.

While some encryption systems have two different but logically linked keys, these are known as Asymmetric.

The Data:

The data being encrypted is basically a combination of statistically (or not) collated figures and letters in form of words, labels, numbers, decimals, etc.

Encrypted data can be sensitive information for government bodies, financial or business enterprises. Or your chat history on messaging applications like WhatsApp or even your emails.

These days though, even search engines that might take advantage of usersâ€™ information for personalizing ads, ensure that every userâ€™s online activities are encrypted.

Cipher:

Ciphers sometimes spelt cyphers are also known as encryption algorithms. They are a series of set steps, processes or procedures an encryption engine follows to encrypt or decrypt data.

They are simply systems for encrypting or decrypting data. A cipher uses the keys in the encryption engine to convert the original data from plain text into a scrambled form known as cipher text.

The only way to decrypt the encrypted data is using a corresponding decryption key. There are many types of ciphers such as block ciphers, stream ciphers, hill ciphers, transposition ciphers, ceased ciphers, etc.

Conclusion,

Security is an important component of any database architecture. It is vital that data is secured from corruption from viruses and also from attackers such as hackers who might use the data for nefarious purposes.

Encryption has proven to be one effective tool to protect and secure data from attackers. Proper management of an encrption engine would ensure your database is secured from any form of unauthorized access.

Thanks for reading : -)