Those who like to remain on top of technology will be aware that blockchain is the new future. Additionally, a crucial component of blockchain technology that enables safe communication is cryptography.
The best approach for protecting data from illegal access is encryption, which when combined with hashing makes the Blockchain even more secure. You will learn in-depth information on the two main categories of cryptography in this article, as well as how cryptography is used in blockchain technology.
What is Cryptography?
To prevent a third party from accessing and learning information from the private messages sent during a communication process, cryptography is a method of building procedures and protocols. The meanings “hidden” and “to write,” respectively, from two ancient Greek words, Kryptos and Graphein, are usually used to describe cryptography.
Types of Cryptography
Understanding the different types of cryptography is necessary to comprehend cryptography in the blockchain. Hash functions, symmetric-key cryptography, and asymmetric-key cryptography are the major three methods used to execute cryptographic algorithms.
The answer will be symmetric-key and asymmetric-key cryptography if your query is, “What are the two main types of cryptography?”
Symmetric-Key Cryptography:
With this encryption technique, only one key is used. The identical shared key is used throughout both encryption and decryption.
When employing a single common key, it becomes difficult to safely transfer the key between the sender and the recipient. Another name for it is secret-key cryptography.
This kind of encryption makes sure that both the sender and the receiver are aware of the key.
Block ciphers and stream ciphers are the two categories of symmetric-key encryption. The keys in stream ciphers frequently change since they operate on a single bit at a time.
On the other hand, as their name suggests, block ciphers encrypt one block of data at a time. But in this instance, the identical plaintext block will be constantly converted to the identical ciphertext.
Asymmetric-Key Cryptography:
This encryption technique employs two keys, a public key and a private key, which are used for encryption and decryption, respectively. The key pair produced by this algorithm is made up of a private key and a distinctive public key that is also produced by the algorithm. It also goes by the name of public-key cryptography.
When the environment is constantly changing and data is sent between various communication partners, asymmetric cryptography is used. Its tremendous scalability is the cause of this. When using this style of encryption, one party generates the secret key and encrypts it using the recipient’s public key.
Using their private key, the recipient may then quickly decrypt it. Once the connection has been established, the secret key will be applied as the encryption key for the remaining transmission.
The issue with asymmetric keys, in a contrast to symmetric keys, arises when the public key must be authenticated.
The public key could be changed by any hostile outsider. But by employing public-key infrastructure, this issue can be resolved (PKI).
The ownership of the keys is verified using this manner by certificate authorities, another third party. The “web of trust” technique is another one that may be used to guarantee the authenticity of the key pair.
In that case, the Rivest-Shamir-Adelman method, sometimes known as the RSA method, is a popular asymmetric key authentication implementation that uses a public key cryptosystem.
Hash Functions:
There are no keys involved in this kind of encryption. It takes the plaintext and generates a hash value of a certain length using a cipher. It is practically hard to extract the contents of plain text from the ciphertext. As a result, the hash function serves as a special code for each piece of text.
This procedure transforms plaintext data of any size into a distinct ciphertext of a predetermined length.
The definition of a hash function gives the impression that hashing and encryption are synonymous, even though they are not.
The fundamental distinction between the two is that, unlike encryption, hashing does not call for the decryption of the hash value. The way it generally operates is that plaintext data is inserted, and then an unintelligible output is produced using a mathematical procedure.
Benefits of Cryptography in Blockchain
There are a plethora of advantages to blockchain cryptography, some of which are listed below:
Encryption:
Asymmetric encryption is used in cryptography to provide that data and communications are protected against unauthorized disclosure and access on their network.
Immutability:
This characteristic of cryptography makes it crucial for blockchain and enables blocks to be securely linked by other blocks, as well as to ensure the dependability of the data stored there.
It also makes sure that no attacker can create a valid signature for hypothetical queries using the signatures of previous queries.
Security:
By encrypting data and allowing access to it via public and private keys, cryptography facilitates the keeping of transaction records. Blockchain is more secure because using cryptographic hashing, and tampering with data is not feasible.
Scalability:
All users may rely on the correctness of the digital ledger because cryptography makes the transaction irreversible. It enables an infinite number of transactions to be safely recorded in the network.
Prevent hackers:
The digital signature stops hackers from changing the data because it loses its validity if the data is changed. Data is protected from hackers with the aid of cryptography, making blockchain cryptography unstoppable.
Conclusion:
The foundational features of blockchain technology neatly match the fundamental principles of encryption. Although digital signatures are reliable techniques for encrypting communications in blockchain networks, cryptographic hashing offers more potential.