Cryptography and Computer Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Cryptography and Computer Security - Essay Example virus from which the computer needed protection. Issues continued to arise but the most serious problem came with the introduction of internet. Internet gave birth to many problems because the internet gave rise to many virtual access points. Access points are an entrance to every sort of information and along with the information that enters virus and other malwares can easily enter. This opened a gateway to many virus and unwanted material into the computer. In order to protect the computer from such threats many techniques and methods were adopted and up till now new techniques and soft wares are being developed to protect the computer. One such method of protecting data is cryptography. It was used to convert understandable data into data that cannot be understood. In the earlier years cryptography was used to protect and secure information and messages between important personnel but gradually cryptography began to be used for the protection and safety of all sorts of communicat ion and safe computing. CRYPTOGRAPGY Cryptography has generally been used widely and there are some keys that are written for public and the major reason is to protect the data that is being transferred that is why it usually remains a secret or a matter of confidentiality between the receiver and the sender. It is a matter of great concern for the government and especially the law enforcing agencies when the data is encrypted as they need to be better equipped with programs and software so as to be counter the encrypted data and be able to read it. This is the sole reason that previously there was such a hue and cry with relations to the matter of privacy. It was discovered that there was no mail or communication that was hidden from them. They had super software and super computers to help them decode the algorithms and be able to decipher it. Earlier in 2009 there a series of very serious attacks on various organizations like Yahoo, Google, Morgan Stanley, Juniper Networks, Syman tec, Dow Chemical and the Adobe Systems. It was an attempt to get hold and manipulate the SCM of these organizations. The SCMs were wide open for access and the organizations never thought of protecting them as they felt that it was safe. The SCMs are quite an important part of any programs as they help when the person is looking to restructure the programs or rewrite them for any changes that are required. The main reason for the attack was to modify the SCM and then re modify the programs to their own motives. This attack showed how vulnerable the SCMs were. The result of this attack was to encrypt the SCM so that even if anyone got hold of them they would not be able to modify it. The encryption codified the programming and thus it was useless until the person was an expert in the algorithms. The attack basically modified the file path and turned normal usable software into malwares. It was at first discovered by the Google blog and then as a result they put forward an ultimatum that this originated in china and if it is not taken care of Google would close its franchise in China. There were further algorithms that were released from time to time just to exploit the loopholes that existed in various very commonly used software and this was done by random programmers. Encryption helps prevent such attacks (Stallings, 2011). With the advent of