Ciphers to Crypto: Unlocking the Secrets of Online Security 🔐

Find my free accompanying study notes here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ou1TWViAgn3DT7jS2rR0EmHki3vEiX0F/view?usp=sharing] In this one, we take a big sweep through the wild world of cryptography, how we scramble, protect, and verify data in a world full of nosy people and clever hackers. We kick off with substitution ciphers, Caesar and Vigenère, then look at how frequency analysis can crack them faster than you'd think. Then it’s onto hashes, why they’re one-way only, how they’re used to store passwords, and what makes a hash function good (spoiler: not just adding numbers together). We get into digital signatures, how public and private keys work, and why asymmetric encryption is the secret sauce behind secure messaging, HTTPS, and even blockchain. Speaking of which we finish with how blockchains actually work, what “proof of work” means, and why you can’t just fake a Bitcoin transaction unless you’ve got infinite time and power #cryptography #hashing #encryption #blockchain #cybersecurity #infosec