Network Security

Security Concepts

Security involves two key aspects:

1. Encryption – Ensures traffic remains secure even if intercepted.

2. Authentication – Verifies that the client is connected to the intended server (server authentication).
   While these provide an acceptable level of security, no system is entirely secure

Encryption

The process of converting plain text into cypher text to protect information from unauthorized access.

Authentication

The process of verifying the identity of users or systems to ensure that the server is communicating with the intended client.

Symetric and Asymetric keys in pratice are…

Symmetric key algorithms are relatively efficient in code.

Asymmetric algorithms are compute intensive.

(rev a lvl notes on this)

Man-in-the-middle attack (MITM)

A security breach where an attacker intercepts communications between two parties without them knowing.

Certificate

A digital document provided by a certification authority that guarantees the public key belongs to the entity that owns it.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

A framework that manages digital certificates and public-key encryption to secure communications over networks.

Session key

A short symmetric key used for encrypting a single session of communication that is exchanged using an asymmetric algorithm.