Advantages of Using Encrypted Keys

The ABC Institute of Research is working with XYZ Inc. on top secret information that needs to be protected from its rivals. This report includes the information that ABC Institute wanted pertaining to the type of key that can be used for security purposes on their network to prevent the leak of this sensitive information. I have put together a possible solution, and it will contain both symmetric and asymmetric. I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of any solution employed.

First I would like to start with explaining what symmetric is; symmetric key encryption is also called private key encryption, because there is only one key and it must be kept secret. There are advantages and disadvantages to using symmetric key encryption, including the need for absolute secrecy of the private key. One advantage of symmetric encryption is that it’s faster than asymmetric encryption. Symmetric encryption is typically 100 times faster than asymmetric encryption, and when using special encryption hardware, can be 1,000 to 10,000 times faster. The disadvantage is it involves the use of one private key that must be shared with all parties to any message encrypted with the key. The key is used to encrypt the message or data at one end, and is also used to decrypt the information at the receiving end. In order to keep the private keys involved in symmetric encryption secret, the participants in the encryption association must have a way to securely transmit or transport the secret keys (Alan Hughes 2013).

Secondly, the advantage of asymmetric key encryption which uses a private key and a public key provides the means to encrypt the secret key and transmit it for decryption with the sender's public key on the other end. This is called a "digital envelope" and is a very secure method of transmitting the keys. The digital keys could be kept behind cyber doors for maximum security. The disadvantages of asymmetric encryption is that it uses longer keys to achieve...