public-key cryptography

cryptographysecurity

Stands for: asymmetric cryptography

Encryption using a pair of keys, one public and one private, so no shared secret must be exchanged first.

In asymmetric cryptography what one key locks, only the other can unlock. Announced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, it solved the age-old problem of exchanging keys safely, and it underpins TLS, digital signatures, and PKI.

Also known as: asymmetric encryption, public key, private key, keypair

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