criptografic

Criptografic is a term used to describe a field of study and a set of techniques for securing information by transforming it into unreadable forms for unauthorized parties and reconstructing the original content for authorized users. In some languages, the standard term is cryptography or cryptographic, and criptografic may appear as a variant spelling.

The term derives from Greek kryptos, hidden, and graphe, writing, and is connected to the broader practice of protecting information through coded transformations.

Overview: The core objectives are confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. Core mechanisms include encryption algorithms, keys, and protocols. The field distinguishes symmetric cryptography, where the same key encrypts and decrypts, from asymmetric cryptography, which uses public and private keys. Other concepts include cryptographic hash functions, digital signatures, and public-key certificates. Modern examples include AES, RSA, elliptic-curve cryptography, and hash functions such as SHA-256.

Applications include securing communications and data at rest, e-commerce, messaging, VPNs, and blockchain technologies. Security considerations cover key management, randomness quality, resistance to side-channel attacks, and compliance with standards and laws. The evolution faces challenges from quantum computing, prompting the development of post-quantum algorithms, while ongoing research explores homomorphic encryption, secure multi-party computation, and privacy-preserving protocols such as zero-knowledge proofs.