eli5 can someone explain to me what the RSA algorithm in cybersecurity is please
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It’s one of the most popular asymmetric encryption algorithms. This means that each sender / recipient creates 2 sets of keys. The private key (which they keep private) and the public key (which they share with others).
If I want to send you an encrypted message I would encrypt the message with your public key. Then you would decrypt it with your private key. When you want to reply to me you would encrypt with my public key and I would decrypt with my private key.
Any eavesdropper would not be able to decrypt the message with just the public key. So the message remains secure.
For this to work the public and private keys need to be related but it should be mathematically prohibitively difficult (practically impossible with today’s technology) to derive the private key from the public key. The way this works is by using trap door mathematical functions. In other words calculations that are really easy to do in one direction but really difficult to do in reverse such as multiplying to very large prime numbers together.
This is an oversimplification but it’s also ELI5. Also I’d be lying if I told you I fully understand the mathematics behind it in a detailed level, just a high level understanding of the underlying principle.
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