ITPEC FE Subject A April 2024 Question 29
ITPEC FE Subject A April 2024 — Question 29 of 60
RSA and public-key cryptography — identifies RSA as the algorithm based on integer factorization hardness.
RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is a public-key (asymmetric) cryptosystem. Its security relies on the fact that multiplying two large primes is computationally easy, but reversing the operation — factoring the resulting large number back into its prime factors — is computationally infeasible at sufficient key sizes.
Why not others:
- (a) AES — symmetric encryption algorithm; security is based on substitution-permutation, not factoring
- (b) DH — Diffie-Hellman key exchange; security is based on the discrete logarithm problem, not factoring
- (c) DSA — Digital Signature Algorithm; also based on the discrete logarithm problem
Key rule: factoring large primes → RSA; discrete logarithm → DH / DSA; symmetric block cipher → AES.
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