ITPEC FE Morning April 2021 Question 38
ITPEC FE Morning April 2021 — Question 38 of 80
Symmetric Encryption (AES) — AES uses the same key for both encryption and decryption.
Why AES:
- AES is a symmetric cipher — one shared key encrypts and decrypts
- Fast and suitable for encrypting data at rest (e.g., databases)
Why not others:
- (b) PKI — not an encryption algorithm; it's an infrastructure for managing digital certificates and keys
- (c) RSA — asymmetric encryption (uses a public/private key pair)
- (d) SHA-256 — a hash function, not encryption; hashing is one-way and cannot be reversed
Key rule: "Same key" = symmetric → AES, DES, 3DES. "Two keys" = asymmetric → RSA, ECC.
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