ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of cryptography and DNA computing. It presents all the basics of cryptography and discusses background studies of DNA and the applications of DNA computing in the field of cryptography. In the 1970s, all cryptosystems used symmetric key encryption. Asymmetric key encryption is also known as public key cryptography. Key management is one of the important aspects of any cryptosystem. Both steganography and cryptography have common aim but use different approaches. In 1994, DNA was first proposed in the field of computation by L. M. Adleman of the University of Southern California. DNA computing is widely used to improving data security because of its complex structure. DNA cryptography is one of the rapid technologies that are based on DNA computing. The DNA-based steganography technique is simple, only converting the plaintext of the data into a plaintext DNA.
