Part 2 – 9: Terms and Definitions for Crypto Attacks
| Term | Definition |
| Cryptography | Secure communications techniques that allow only the sender and intended recipient of a message to view its contents |
| SSL Certificate | A certificate used to encrypt a website, commonly with websites that use logins |
| WPA | Wi-Fi Protected Access used to protect the password for wireless routers |
| Brute Force Attack | Trial-and-error to guess possible combinations for passwords |
| MD5 Hashing | Encrypting the data by using different characters and numbers |
Cryptography is used to encrypt a message in which the sender and receiver can only view and requires a code to decrypt the message. You may see this commonly with a program called BitLocker which will encrypt a file or drive but will require a password to decrypt them and make them viewable. This same process is used around many other types of devices and services to allow for a more robust and secure system or process, such as using an SSL certificate to encrypt a website or using WPA for wireless technology to encrypt the password used to gain access to a wireless router. A crypto attack can occur in any of these instances when an attack can access the system and can use brute force attacks to gain access. Through use of hashing, users can protect information and data. MD5 Hashing will simply take the raw data and convert it into an very large sum of numbers and letters. Every time the hash is run on the data, the same sum of numbers and letters are created matching the old hash. If something changes with the data and you run a hash against the data again. This time, the hash will be different because the change in the data..