dulkóða

Dulkóða is an Icelandic verb meaning to encrypt or encode information to conceal its contents from unauthorized readers. The action transforms readable data, or plaintext, into ciphertext that should be intelligible only to someone who has the means to reverse the process. In practice, dulkóða is a central concept in information security, used to protect files, messages, and communications both in storage and during transmission.

Dulkóða relies on cryptographic algorithms and keys. The security of encrypted data depends on the strength of the algorithm and the secrecy and management of the keys. In modern systems, approaches include symmetric encryption, which uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt, and asymmetric encryption, which uses a pair of keys for encryption and decryption.

In Icelandic usage, dulkóða is commonly paired with nouns describing the protected material or context, such as data or communications, and the related noun dulkóðun refers to the process of encryption. Historically, encryption methods evolved from manual ciphers to computational algorithms, and today dulkóða is a routine part of digital privacy and security policies across organizations and online services, including protection of emails, disks, databases, and web traffic.