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What is data encryption?

Blog post from Basis Theory

Post Details
Company
Date Published
Author
Basis Theory
Word Count
2,427
Company Posts That Month
5
Language
English
Hacker News Points
-
Post removed?
No
Summary

Data encryption protects sensitive business and customer information by converting plaintext into ciphertext through an algorithm and key, while decryption restores the original data using the appropriate key. It distinguishes symmetric encryption, which uses one shared key and is efficient for bulk data, from asymmetric encryption, which uses public and private key pairs and is commonly used to establish secure shared keys. The discussion covers modern and outdated algorithms, including AES, RSA with sufficiently long keys, 3DES, and post-quantum CRYSTALS-Kyber, and explains encryption’s roles for data at rest, in transit through HTTPS/TLS, and, less practically, in use through homomorphic encryption. Although encryption is relatively accessible, supports regulatory compliance, and can be applied across systems, it requires careful decisions about implementation, secure key storage, key rotation, data sharing, and protection of decrypted information. Tokenization is presented as an alternative for handling sensitive values by replacing them with nonreversible references managed in a secure vault, while hashing is differentiated as a one-way process primarily used to verify integrity or passwords, often strengthened with salts to resist lookup-table attacks.

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