Network Security

Network Security for ABC Institute of Research and XYZ INC. Analysis

This report is the analysis of asymmetric or symmetric security keys to use for the institute to protect the highly sensitive data that must be protected at all costs. To determine what key to use we must look at the advantages and disadvantages of both keys and formulate a plan of action that is feasible for both ABC Institute and XYZ Inc.

The first type of key is Asymmetric cryptosystem that is a public key cryptosystem and there are two different keys used for the encryption and decryption of data. The encryption key is public but the decryption is secret and called a private key. The keys are generated so that it would be impossible figure out the private key from the public key. The Sender and receiver both have two keys but the private key is private and not sent over with the message to the receiver.

The Advantages of the Asymmetric cryptosystem are cryptography there is no need for exchanging keys, thus eliminating the key distribution problem. The primary advantage of public-key cryptography is increased security and the private keys do not ever need to be transmitted or revealed to anyone. Finally, it can provide digital signatures and are repudiated.

A disadvantage of using public-key cryptography for encryption is speed: there are popular secret-key encryption methods that are significantly faster than any currently available public-key encryption method.

The other type of key is the Symmetric Cryptosystem is a private cryptosystem that only uses one key for both the encryption and decryption of the data. The key used for encryption and decryption is a private key and only people who are authorized for the encryption/decryption would know it. In a symmetric cryptosystem, the encrypted message is sent without any public keys attached to it.

The advantages of the symmetric cryptosystem are the processing is faster than the asymmetric cryptosystem. In Symmetric Cryptosystems, encrypted data is transferred on the link even if there is a possibility that the data will be intercepted. Since there is no key transmitted with the data, which gives little chance of the data being decrypted. A symmetric cryptosystem uses password authentication to prove the receiver's identity and only a system with the secret key can decrypt the message.

The disadvantages of the Symmetric cryptosystem have a problem of the key transportation. The secret key is transmitted to the receiving system before is insecure as it is impossible to guarantee that no one will be able to tap communication channels.

It is my findings that the ABC Institute of Research and XYZ INC should use the Asymmetric Cryptosystem because the public key cryptographic system can be deployed using PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) using digital signatures and separate public keys for each user, it is more reliable

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