Introduction to Applied Cryptography

Catalog description

This course will provide students with an introduction to applied cryptography. The course starts with the need for protection mechanisms for data during processing, when in transit, and when at rest. The course starts with a study of classical cipher techniques and randomness. The majority of the course is a study of applied cryptography, focusing on the practical aspects of private key and public key cryptography, the mechanisms/algorithms that cryptography provides for symmetric and asymmetric encryption, key agreement, hashing, and digital signatures. NIST standard mechanisms, including AES, Triple-DES, RSA, SHA-1, SHA-2, ASCON, and others will be used extensively in laboratory exercises. The key takeaway from the course will be an ability to identify the appropriate mechanisms for securing an architecturally distributed system.