Public key cryptography
Public-key cryptography is asymmetric cryptography that uses mathematically related public and private keys for encryption, decryption, signing, and verification.
Software Security for Developers
A public-key cryptosystem is a cryptographic system that uses mathematically related public and private keys for security operations.
- How it is used
- Deploys public–private key pairs to secure TLS, service communication, encryption, signatures, and passwordless authentication.
- How deep it goes
- Explains key distribution, encryption, signatures, certificates, hybrid schemes, and RSA versus ECC without mathematical proofs.
- Examples
- Uses online services, ACME refund processing, TLS, RSA-OAEP, hybrid encryption, and WebAuthn as concrete applications.
- What you can do after
- Configure and troubleshoot TLS and choose safer key, padding, certificate, storage, and hybrid-encryption practices.
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Real-World Cryptography
Asymmetric encryption is an encryption technique in which a public key encrypts data and a corresponding private key decrypts it.
- How it is used
- Solves key distribution and supports confidentiality, key exchange, signatures, and passwordless authentication.
- How deep it goes
- Explains key-pair generation, encryption, decryption, signatures, and hybrid use, but defers detailed mathematical construction and implementation.
- Examples
- Uses encrypted email, Alice’s public-key message flow, RSA signatures, encapsulated symmetric keys, client certificates, SSH, and FIDO2 authenticators.
- What you can do after
- Apply public and private keys to encrypt messages, establish shared secrets, verify signatures, and authenticate clients.
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Hacking Cryptography
Public-key cryptography is cryptography based on paired public and private keys, allowing operations such as encryption or signature verification with a public key while restricting the corresponding inverse operation to the private-key holder.
- How it is used
- Uses paired keys to solve secret-key exchange and support encryption and signature verification over insecure channels.
- How deep it goes
- Explains keypair workflows, trapdoor foundations, RSA failures, and defenses, while deferring detailed digital-signature treatment.
- Examples
- Uses Alice–Bob message exchange, lock-and-key intuition, shared-prime RSA keys, batch GCD detection, padding, and small-exponent attacks.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via public-key encryption while recognizing weak randomness, deterministic RSA, shared factors, and small private exponents.
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Build Python Web Apps with Streamlit
Public-key cryptography is a cryptographic technique that uses mathematically related public and private keys for secure authentication or communication.
- How it is used
- Secures authenticated SSH access to EC2 instances created for a deployed application.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the key roles and security benefit, then demonstrates setup, but defers the underlying theory and SSH connection procedure.
- Examples
- Uses EB CLI prompts to generate an RSA key pair and upload its public portion to AWS.
- What you can do after
- Operate Elastic Beanstalk initialization to create and register an SSH key pair for later EC2 access.
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ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e
Public key cryptography is cryptography that uses a mathematically related public key and private key for encryption, decryption, or authentication.
- How it is used
- Supports HTTPS encryption and server authentication through public-private key pairs and certificate chains.
- How deep it goes
- Explains key roles and certificate trust chains, but stops short of algorithmic or mathematical details.
- Examples
- Uses browser-server encryption, development-certificate warnings, and the dotnet dev-certs https --trust command.
- What you can do after
- Operate ASP.NET Core HTTPS development certificates and resolve browser trust warnings with the .NET SDK.
Read how ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e explains public key cryptography →
Related concepts
- symmetric key encryptioncontrasts with · Symmetric-key encryption is cryptography that uses the same shared secret key, or equivalent derived key material, to encrypt and decrypt data.
- TLSused by · Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that protects network communications through confidentiality, integrity, and authentication of communicating endpoints.
- encryptionkind of · Encryption is the cryptographic transformation of readable data into ciphertext to conceal its contents, reversible through decryption with appropriate information.
- public-private key pairuses · A public-private key pair is a mathematically related public key and private key used together for asymmetric cryptographic operations.
- key-distribution problemaddresses · The key-distribution problem is the challenge of securely delivering cryptographic keys to authorized communicating parties while preventing unauthorized access or exposure.
- key exchangeused by · Key exchange is a cryptographic protocol by which communicating parties establish a shared secret over a communication channel without directly transmitting that secret.
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