The encryption system employed by many companies is called a public key/private key encryption system. In a public-key/private-key encryption system, each entity that needs to receive encrypted data publishes a public key for encrypting data while keeping a private key to itself as the only means for decrypting that data. Anyone can encrypt and send data to the company using its published public key, but only the company’s private key can be used to decrypt the data and only the company that published the public key has the private key.
An authentication key is a series of unique characters that are generated based on some unique information provided. Authentication keys have many uses, and one of them is as an encryption technique. Public-key cryptography (PKC) uses uniquely generated keys to verify the identity of someone when certain types of information are requested. One of the most common uses of PKC is to verify the identity of a party attempting to decrypt certain information. The party must posses the unique authentication key in order to decrypt the information.
The encryption system employed by many companies is called a public key/private key encryption system. In a public-key/private-key encryption system, each entity that needs to receive encrypted data publishes a public key for encrypting data while keeping a private key to itself as the only means for decrypting that data. Anyone can encrypt and send data to the company using its published public key, but only the company’s private key can be used to decrypt the data and only the company that published the public key has the private key.
Primary key is a database term, and it has nothing to do with encryption. A key is an attribute of a database record that allows the record to be sorted. The primary key is the primary identifier for the record.
|
