What is encryption?
Encryption prevents unauthorised access to your data, from emails to WhatsApp messages and bank details, by keeping communication secure between the parties involved.
This is done by 'scrambling' the information sent from one person to another into a lengthy code making it unreadable for anybody else attempting to access it.
When the data is encrypted, the sender and the receiver are the only people that can decrypt the scrambled info back to a readable condition. This is achieved via ‘keys’, which grant only the users involved access to modify the data to make it unreadable and then readable again.
On messaging app Whatsapp, for example, every message sent has its own unique lock and key and only the sender and receiver have access to these keys. This prevents prying eyes from seeing the information in messages. For the rest of the world, and even Whatsapp itself, the relayed information is unintelligible gibberish because no-one else has the key to decrypt the content. This is referred to as ‘end-to-end encryption’.
Put more simply, imagine encryption to be like translating your information into a language only you and your recipient know, and more importantly which a cybercriminal can’t translate.
Safe, not 'hackerproof'
Most popular apps make use of encryption to retain user safety, whether that’s for storing data, or for data in transit.
Tony Anscombe, senior security evangelist from Avast told WIRED that encryption in apps is imperative as it makes using safer, but at the same time, those that don’t practise common sense can still fall victim to hacking.
“Many apps offer encryption of data, however if a user doesn’t lock the app with a password or PIN, then anyone who gets hold of the device has access to your apps and will be able to see the unencrypted data,” Anscombe explained. “That said, many operating systems offer encryption of everything stored on the device. This helps combat theft of the device to access the data.”
When implemented properly, encrypted data could take a hacker billions of years to crack based on sheer brute force attacks. This is because encryption codes use complex mathematical algorithms and long numerical sequences that are difficult to decrypt.
A brute force attack is a method used by a hacker to try as many combinations of passwords or encryption keys until the correct one is found. It is usually carried out using software to scan through the combinations.
However, there are different types of encryption, each with varying levels of effectiveness. This is measured in “bits”. The higher the number of bits an encryption, the harder it is - in theory - for a hacker to crack it.