ABSTRACT
Symmetric key cryptography is the standard way of maintaining confi dentiality where a single, secret key is used to both encrypt and decrypt data. It is thus also referred to as “secret-key” or “single-key” cryptography. A symmetric encryption scheme is based on the following functional components:
• Algorithms: A cryptographic algorithm is a set of actions designed to produce encrypted data from plain text (“encryption algorithm”), or plain text from encrypted data (“decryption algorithm”).
