Challenges and Limitations of Symmetric Key Cryptography
- Key management and distribution: Both the sender and the receiver in the SKC of a message need to have the same key, and the key should not be seen by a third party. In case the key is somehow captured or compromised by a third party, the security of the encrypted data is also lost.
- Non-repudiation: Non-repudiation refers to the ability to prove that a specific party has sent a message. In SKC, since the same key is used for encryption and decryption, it is impossible to find out which party created a particular cipher text.
Because of these challenges, symmetric key cryptography is often used in conjunction with asymmetric key cryptography.
Symmetric Key Cryptography
Symmetrical Key Cryptography also known as conventional or single-key encryption was the primary method of encryption before the introduction of public key cryptography in the 1970s. In symmetric-key algorithms, the same keys are used for data encryption and decryption. This type of cryptography plays a crucial role in securing data because the same key is used for both encryption and decryption.
In this article, we will cover the techniques used in symmetric key cryptography, its applications, principles on which it works, its types and limitations as well as what type of attacks in the digital world it gets to face.