Let’s start off by saying there is no way to know if your computer is exactly one-hundred percent safe. But you can do specific things to help minimize the risk of an intrusion. Things like malware are a big reason we have to keep our computers and other electronics under watch, so our information and data does not get compromised or possibly stolen. Some common tips and things to do to keep your computer safe are keeping your computer operating system and anti-virus software up to date. Also do not click links or open attachments in emails unless it is from someone you can one-hundred percent trust. Learning what you can do to prevent these things is the most important. Cryptography is a huge part of security when sending data or information through computers and the internet. It involves encryption, which is the process of using a code to hide a message or data, and decryption which is the opposite and involves decoding. Keys are used in a similar way to passwords to be able to decrypt the data being sent or received. Cryptography is needed to keep people’s computers safe. Namely for confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation purposes. Authentication is the most important and is basically a reassurance of who is sending you a message. Things that do this are certificates, digital signatures, and keys. If data has been signed by a private key it can be verified by checking with a public key. This is essentially a verification tool to make sure whoever is getting the message knows that it is safe and who it says it is actually from. These are all important to keeping computers safe. If things like this are not on your computer like anti-virus software it is a good job to try and combat this by doing so and making sure you do not have malware or spyware on your devices.

Works Cited

Anon, Dennis. “An introduction to cryptography.” (n.d.).