ENCRYPTION - BSA

1 ENCRYPTION : Securing Our Data, Securing our lives HOW IT WORKS AND WHAT IT DOES. Introduction The widespread availability and use of security technologies, resulting in ENCRYPTION taking technologies, most notably ENCRYPTION , its central position of enabling our dynamic, is an essential feature of our increasingly digital world today. connected digital world. Every time we log into our bank accounts or favorite social This paper describes the vital but often media site; every time we unnoticed role ENCRYPTION plays in our daily make a cell phone call to lives whether protecting our personal a loved one; every time information and banking data, driving we pay for something economic opportunity, or guarding our ENCRYPTION is used with a credit card; and nation's critical infrastructure.

2 It explains how to prevent hackers every time we upload ENCRYPTION works, how it is used, what makes from accessing our pictures, documents, it strong, and why efforts are underway to health records or and records to the continuously improve digital security and wreaking havoc with cloud, our data is being enable new opportunities. our transportation protected by ENCRYPTION . infrastructure and And it is not just the Although its role is often overlooked, electrical grid. content we create or ENCRYPTION empowers us to take the most the communications we important, intimate, and sensitive information initiate. ENCRYPTION is in our lives , and makes sure we can control used to prevent hackers what happens with it even if a device is lost from accessing our health records or wreaking or stolen.

3 ENCRYPTION does not just protect havoc with our transportation infrastructure our privacy, it also is used to improve security, and electrical grid. ensure identity, and protect anonymity. With more and more wearables coming to market ENCRYPTION has been around for centuries. tied to fitness and good health, ENCRYPTION Yet only now has the demand for security and is even able to protect the private moments privacy converged with the availability of new when our hearts race and our feet walk. | 1. THE ROLE ENCRYPTION PLAYS IN our lives AND OUR ECONOMY. ENCRYPTION : Securing Our Data, Securing our lives Although we may not think about ENCRYPTION every day, it has become an important and often hidden driver for various critical activities we take for granted.

4 Imagine two busy parents going about their day. It's a big day for Jane and John Doe. Jane wakes up first to go for a run, and has her smartphone log her steps and keep track of her heart rate at various intervals. Before leaving for work, John helps their daughter finish her history paper, which is stored in the cloud for her teacher to At the same time, Jane remotely logs into work2 and checks her She texts her client4 and they pick a location to meet for Jane gets to the restaurant early and uses its Wi-Fi6. to browse the A DAY IN THE She pays for lunch with a credit LIFE WITH Before leaving she checks her smartwatch9 and sees ENCRYPTION that she still has time to stop by the Meanwhile at work, John goes online to check the results of a recent medical test showing good John makes a cellphone call to his wife to let her He logs into their bank account13 to see if Jane's paycheck has been deposited yet14 before deciding to purchase tickets for their long-delayed When Jane and John get home, they warm up with their connected thermostat,16 rent a movie from their cable TV.

5 Provider,17 and post a funny animated gif to It has been a long day, and they fall asleep to a favorite playlist from their streaming music Each of these moments, and many more in our busy lives, are enabled by ENCRYPTION . | 2. ENCRYPTION : Securing Our Data, Securing our lives ENCRYPTION plays an increasingly vital In the transportation sector, connected role in helping to grow our economy. vehicle technologies, which rely on strong The widespread use of the various forms of ENCRYPTION to prevent the cars from being ENCRYPTION is enabling us to do things never hacked, may be used to cut highway before possible, and, as a result, is fueling fatalities in Today's cars can already near unprecedented contain as many as a 100 million lines of growth in the digital code 100 times more than the space ENCRYPTION is shuttle had when it helping protect billions By guarding our of online transactions most vital computers each day.

6 Enabling ENCRYPTION has been at the forefront of and networks banks to route more protecting our most vital national security secrets for years. ENCRYPTION technology has from intrusion, than $40 trillion in financial transactions long played a crucial role in protecting US. ENCRYPTION has been a year, and enabling national security interests, from the critical at the forefront consumers to order role cryptographers played in our ability to of efforts to make win World War II, to the role ENCRYPTION plays our information more than $300 billion in online goods and today to protect the sanctity of information infrastructure more that flows across classified national security services with just the secure, trustworthy, networks, to the encrypted transceivers click of a button.

7 And resilient. that are used to secure and control drone Its effect is being weapon By guarding our most felt throughout the vital computers and networks from intrusion, economy in nearly ENCRYPTION has been at the forefront of efforts every sector where securing information is to make our information infrastructure more necessary. For example: secure, trustworthy, and resilient. In the energy sector, ENCRYPTION is at ENCRYPTION also helps protect against the the heart of SmartGrid technologies disruption of critical infrastructure systems. that promise to reduce greenhouse gas Businesses and policymakers alike are emissions and boost network reliability.

8 Turning to strong ENCRYPTION to safeguard our electric grid,26 to protect the industrial In the health care sector, leaders are control systems27 that control our waterways,28. turning to ENCRYPTION to help better to secure private nuclear facilities,29 and to protect the privacy of patient data,21 and protect our air traffic control system from to enable a cloud-driven revolution in ENCRYPTION plays an important role personalized medicine that promises to around the globe where it enables good help people live longer, healthier people living under repressive regimes to spread freedom and | 3. ENCRYPTION : Securing Our Data, Securing our lives ENCRYPTION 101: The Basics ENCRYPTION is designed to help protect data of online enthusiasts found they could build whether it is sitting on a computer, residing a machine made of lots of CPUs to crack a on a phone, being transmitted across the 40-bit key in just two Although Internet, or being stored in the cloud.

9 The government at one point tried to limit Technically, ENCRYPTION ENCRYPTION to this length,34 these 40-bit keys works by mathematically now are considered to be dangerously weak transforming data into undecipherable ENCRYPTION strength gibberish-looking text By contrast, strong ENCRYPTION uses longer is often measured that can only be read keys. Take for example the 128-bit key that is by how long the key by authorized people frequently used to protect data at rest on a is needed to unlock with the right decryption hard drive. A 128-bit key can have more than it. The longer the key. An ENCRYPTION key 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, key, the harder it is a random-looking 000,000,000 key combinations.

10 It is the is to break. sequence of bits that is strength of this ENCRYPTION that has made created specifically to it essential for protecting our digital scramble and unscramble economy and our nation's most important data. national security secrets, and for the resilient functioning of our nation's critical ENCRYPTION technologies are sometimes infrastructure. described as being either weak or strong.. ENCRYPTION strength is often measured by Although the mathematics of ENCRYPTION how long the key is needed to unlock it. The are robust, poor implementation can make longer the key, the harder it is to break. ENCRYPTION weak.