On the opening day of Infosecurity Europe 2022, Professor Keith Martin delivered a keynote speech focusing on the critical yet often invisible role cryptography plays in our everyday lives, enabling us to protect our information and share it securely. The session saw Martin explain how cryptography is used and revealed the many crucial ways we depend on cryptographic technology.

Martin began by asserting a common theme heard across the day from multiple speakers: emphasizing the responsibility we all have regarding cybersecurity and understanding how cryptography works. Martin continued by defining what cryptography actually is, stating that ultimately it’s a series of toolkits, techniques and mechanisms – underpinned by mathematical principles and algorithms – to protect and secure information, assisting with issues such as confidentiality, data integrity, data origin authentication and entity authentication. The use of cryptography in practice was then explored, illuminating its use across several areas, including wi-fi security, secure mobile calls, vehicular entry systems, email security and cryptocurrency.

The controversial side of cryptography was also considered, with Martin saying to the audience that as a technology, it has two “problematic” areas: encryption and anonymity. Encryption presents an issue in that secrets can be kept, and “secrets are controversial.” The complexity of anonymity was illustrated using the ‘encryption dilemma,’ an ethical scenario where anonymity can open up channels for criminal misuse. The rights and wrongs of end-to-end encryption with services like WhatsApp were also discussed.

Ref:https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/infosecurityeurope2022-crypto/

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