What is PGP?
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption software program software designed to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of virtual communications and information. Developed with the aid of Phil Zimmermann in 1991, PGP has emerge as a cornerstone of present-day cryptography, notably regarded as one of the best methods for securing digital facts.
At its core, PGP employs a hybrid cryptographic method, combining symmetric-key and public-key cryptography techniques. Symmetric-key cryptography entails the use of a single mystery key to each encrypt and decrypt statistics. Conversely, public-key cryptography utilizes a pair of mathematically associated keys: a public key, that is freely shared and used for encryption, and a personal key, that is stored in mystery and used for decryption.
PGP – Authentication and Confidentiality
During 2013, the NSA (United States National Security Agency) scandal was leaked to the public, people started to opt for services that could provide a strong privacy for their data. Among the services people opted for, most particularly for Emails, were different plug-ins and extensions for their browsers. Interestingly, among the various plug-ins and extensions that people started to use, two main programs were solely responsible for the complete email security that the people needed. One was S/MIME which we will see later and the other was PGP.