What is Encryption and How Does It Works?
In this article, we will learn about Data Encryption. In the Digital world, all data is vulnerable to attacks, causing loss and leakage. This is where Data Encryption plays an important role in safeguarding your data.
Let us break down Data Encryption, its working, and types in detail.
What is the Definition of Encryption?
In layman’s terms, encryption makes data unreadable to unauthorized parties using mathematical algorithms. This helps protect your data from hackers, as even after getting hacked, all they get is an unreadable stack of data.
Using Encryption, you can make sure that your data’s integrity and confidentiality remain untampered with. It limits the access of the data to passkey holders only.
Also, learn about the Top 10 cybersecurity threats and attacks.
How Encryption Works?
Encryption safeguards your data by converting it into ciphertext. Only people with Plain text or data, such as ‘Hello, my name is John’, are converted into unreadable ciphertexts. These ciphertexts are a combination of unreadable numbers and symbols such as ‘53#7*&@2’. Now, this is not understandable to the person who does not have the passkey to this cipher.
Encryption is purely a logical process where, if you have access to the passkey, you can simply turn back the encrypted data into plain text.
Hackers have gotten creative against technology and try to brute force passkeys with large combinations of passkeys available to them on their high computing devices, leaving vulnerabilities and sometimes accessing the most encrypted data within minutes.
Data is mostly encrypted when it’s stored in safe spaces to prevent unwanted access or while it is being transferred between two parties for a business transaction. Data is vulnerable to hackers while it is being transferred, so encryption is a good way to ensure increased safety.
Encryption involves the use of advanced mathematical formulas that are assigned to each word or text on a logical pattern, making the data look like random text. However, simply having access to this formula, i.e., the passkey, the data turns back into plain text. Below is a table of the most commonly used encryption algorithms:
| Algorithm | Type | Typical Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| AES | Symmetric | Disk encryption, TLS, VPNs |
| RSA | Asymmetric | Key exchange, digital signatures |
| ECC | Asymmetric | Mobile/IoT TLS, ECDH, ECDSA |
| ChaCha20‑Poly1305 | Symmetric stream | VPNs, SSH, HTTP/3 |
| 3DES | Symmetric | Legacy hardware, older banking systems |
| Blowfish / Twofish | Symmetric | Disk encryption, embedded systems |
| PQC (Kyber, Dilithium, SPHINCS+) | Asymmetric (quantum‑safe) | Future-proofing TLS, secure messaging |
Encryption in modern times has become a necessity for all digital businesses, unlike in the past when it was only used to protect top government or big corporation data.
Types Of Encryption
Below, multiple types of Encryption are discussed in detail:
Symmetric encryption
It involves the use of a single key to access, cipher, and decipher the data. It is a simple technique used to encrypt the data. As it is very simple to use, it is mainly used to encrypt data involving a large number of files. The algorithms used in this method are mainly AES, 3DES, Blowfish, Twofish, and IDEA.
Asymmetric encryption
Asymmetric encryption involves the use of two keys to encrypt the data. One key is used to encrypt the data, which is available publicly, while the other key is used to decrypt the data and is only available to the private party with privileged access to the data. Public keys are not secure and are made an open resource on the internet.
Asymmetric Encryption is a much stronger way to encrypt files compared to symmetric encryption. This modern method is used to safeguard mostly high-value data, and even websites use this method to secure their data from attacks.
Data Encryption Standard (DES)
DES is a symmetric block cipher. It was adopted as a U.S. federal standard in the year 1977. In this method, data is encrypted in 64-bit blocks using a 56-bit key (technically stored as 64 bits, with 8 bits as parity checking). It begins by rearranging bits in each 64-bit block. This step prepares the data for encryption but does not add security. It involves 16 rounds of processing, each involving:
Expansion: Rₙ expands from 32 to 48 bits via a fixed table
Key Mixing: XORs with a 48-bit round subkey (derived via key schedule)
Substitution: This step adds non-linearity
Permutation: Scrambles bits for diffusion
Feistel Function: XORs this
After these 16 rounds, the halves swap and undergo FP, reversing the IP to generate the 64-bit ciphertext
Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES)
Triple DES (3DES), known as the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA), involves enhancing the original DES cipher by applying it three times to each block of data. It uses three 56-bit DES keys—sometimes two—with a block size of 64 bits.3DES implements an Encrypt–Decrypt–Encrypt (EDE) sequence.
Encrypt plaintext with key K₁
Decrypt the result using key K₂
Encrypt again with key K₃
The decryption reverses this: D(K₃) → E(K₂) → D(K₁)
RSA
RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) was introduced in 1977. It secures data through a pair of mathematically linked keys known as:
- Public key (n, e) used for encryption
- Private key (n, d) used for decryption and signing
It is very good for encrypting the data; however, decrypting the data i relatively harder.
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
AES mainly encrypts 128-bit blocks. In multiple rounds of substitution, permutation, mixing, and key addition it encrypts the data. It is one of the best methods to provide both high security and high performance.
Encryption in the cloud
Using Encryption in cloud services, you can secure your data. Its effectiveness depends on how you handle key, access control, monitoring, and compliance. Using Hybrid techniques cloud data can be secured strongly.
End-to-End encryption
End-to-end encryption is mainly used to protect the data that is widely shared, ensuring privacy against everyone except the intended recipients. An example of this is social media apps like WhatsApp. While it involves a large amount of data, it doesn’t involve metadata, device compromise, or advanced features like server-side analytics or backups
The Benefits Of Encryption
1. Privacy and security- It helps ensure the safety and privacy of the user.
2. Regulations- Help in regulating the Data properly.
3. Secure internet browsing- Internet browsing is made safe using encryption.
4. Encryption keeps sensitive data safe- Sensitive data is not vulnerable to attacks due to an added layer of security.
Conclusion
Encryption plays a major role in safeguarding sensitive data. It helps prevent data theft or leakage. It is easily available and ensures the privacy of the parties involved. Accessibility is limited due to passkey access to the data. You can further contact our team at Cybersics to learn more about the encryption tools available.