cryptography

CRYPTOGRAPHY-a way out of Network Security concern

Securing any network infrastructure is like securing possible entry points of attacks on a country by deploying appropriate defense. Computer security is more like providing means of self-defense to each individual citizen of the country. The former is better and practical to protect the civilians from getting exposed to the attacks. The preventive measures attempt to secure the access to individual computers--the network itself--thereby protecting the computers and other shared resources such as printers, network-attached storage connected by the network. Attacks could be stopped at their entry points before they spread. As opposed to this, in computer security the measures taken are focused on securing individual computer hosts. A computer host whose security is compromised is likely to infect other hosts connected to a potentially unsecured network. A computer host's security is vulnerable to users with higher access privileges to those hosts.Thus the way out of these network security problems araises through the concept of CRYPTOGRAPHY.

The term is often used to refer to the field as a whole, as is cryptology ("the study of secrets"). The study of how to circumvent the confidentiality sought by using encryption is called cryptanalysis or, more loosely, "code breaking." The field is a rich source of jargon, some of it humorous. Cryptography is the study of message secrecy. In modern times, it has become a branch of information theory, as the mathematical study of information and especially its transmission from place to place. The noted cryptographer Ron Rivest has observed that "cryptography is about communication in the presence of adversaries." It is a central contributor to several fields: information security and related issues, particularly, authentication, and access control. One of cryptography's primary purposes is hiding the meaning of messages, not usually the existence of such messages. Cryptography also contributes to computer science, central to the techniques used in computer and network security for such things as access control and information confidentiality. Cryptography is also used in many applications encountered in everyday life; the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce all depend on cryptography.Thus I have chosen this topic to discuss the verious issues that stands in the way of providing the secure an reliable networking through various network.