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Concept
Ciphertext
Summary
In cryptography, ciphertext or cyphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher to decrypt it. This process prevents the loss of sensitive information via hacking. Decryption, the inverse of encryption, is the process of turning ciphertext into readable plaintext. Ciphertext is not to be confused with codetext because the latter is a result of a code, not a cipher.
Let be the plaintext message that Alice wants to secretly transmit to Bob and let be the encryption cipher, where is a cryptographic key. Alice must first transform the plaintext into ciphertext, , in order to securely send the message to Bob, as follows:
In a symmetric-key system, Bob knows Alice's encryption key. Once the message is encrypted, Alice can safely transmit it to Bob (assuming no one else knows the key). In order to read Alice's message, Bob must decrypt the ciphertext using which is known as the decryption cipher,
Alternatively, in a non-symmetric key system, everyone, not just Alice and Bob, knows the encryption key; but the decryption key cannot be inferred from the encryption key. Only Bob knows the decryption key and decryption proceeds as
Cipher
The history of cryptography began thousands of years ago. Cryptography uses a variety of different types of encryption. Earlier algorithms were performed by hand and are substantially different from modern algorithms, which are generally executed by a machine.
Historical pen and paper ciphers used in the past are sometimes known as classical ciphers. They include:
Substitution cipher: the units of plaintext are replaced with ciphertext (e.g., Caesar cipher and one-time pad)
Polyalphabetic substitution cipher: a substitution cipher using multiple substitution alphabets (e.g., Vigenère cipher and Enigma machine)
Polygraphic substitution cipher: the unit of substitution is a sequence of two or more letters rather than just one (e.
Official source
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