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Encryption
Encryption in its simplest form involves scrambling a message so that no one can read the message until it is unscrambled by the receiver.
The sender uses an algorithmic pattern, or a key to scramble, or encrypt the message. The receiver has the decryption key. Encryption ensures privacy and confidentiality in transmissions sent over the Internet.
Use two different kinds of keys for encryption:
Asymmetric keys. You create a key pair with asymmetric keys. The key pair consists of a public key and a private key, which differ from each other. The private key holds more of the secret encryption pattern than the public key. Do not share your private key with anyone.
The server uses its private key to sign messages to clients. The server sends its public key to clients so that they can encrypt messages to the server, which the server decrypts with its private key. Only you can decrypt a message that is encrypted with your public key because only you have the private key. Key pairs are stored in a key database that is protected by a password.
Symmetric keys. Symmetric keys follow an older model of the sender and receiver sharing some kind of pattern. The sender uses this same pattern to encrypt the message and the receiver uses this pattern to decrypt the message. The risk involved with symmetric keys centers around finding a safe transportation method to use, when sharing your secret key with the people to which you want to communicate.
The SSL protocol uses both asymmetric and symmetric key exchange. Use asymmetric keys for the SSL handshake. During the handshake, the master key, encrypted with the receiver public key passes from the client to the server. The client and server make their own session keys using the master key. The session keys encrypt and decrypt data for the remainder of the session. Symmetric key exchange occurs during the exchange of the cipher specification, or encryption level.
The server needs a digital certificate, which is an encrypted message that authenticates Web content, to send its public key to clients. A certificate authority (CA), which signs all certificates that it issues with a private key, issues this certificate and verifies the identity of the server.
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