Why is it necessary to prioritise cryptography today?

The Professional Master’s Degree Advanced Cybersecurity Management of TECH trains cybersecurity experts to ensure companies protect their data

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In association with TECH Technological University

The need to keep information transmitted in a message or system secure has been important throughout history. For that reason, cryptography is the fundamental pillar today to guarantee the security of any communication carried out through computer and technological systems. In this way, the Professional Master’s Degree Advanced Cybersecurity Management from TECH Technological University emphasises the need to ensure safety and security by considering that cryptology expanded with the advancement of technology and the development of computer science.

Now, cryptology creates algorithms that perform processes automatically, to protect texts, authenticate users on a platform and supply a secure communication channel between people, a successful example of this is WhatsApp where all messages are end-to-end encrypted to prevent leakage. Bearing in mind the earlier point, the main uses of cryptography today are:

• Ensure the privacy of personal communications and commercial and banking transactions
• Authenticate and verify user identity
• Ensure the integrity of electronic fund transfers
• Maintains confidentiality and integrity of data in transit and at rest

Software systems typically have multiple endpoints, typically multiple clients and one or more back-end servers, nevertheless, communication occurs over open public networks such as the Internet or private ones that can be compromised by external attackers or malicious insiders. There are two types of attacks: Passive attacks which involve an attacker eavesdropping on a network, and active attacks which posing as a client or server that intercept communications.

Types of cryptographic techniques

The profile of a cybersecurity director is one of the most required by companies that work on the Internet or have services in the digital environment and want to ensure security. In consequence, it is necessary to keep up to date with recent studies and developments in mathematics to develop modern encryption algorithms to withstand attacks and try to break through them, they are based on two operating methodologies:

• Block cipher: It is encrypted in successive blocks or data buffers.
• Stream cipher: Continuous flow of data encrypted and the most common use of this is the transmission of video or audio.

It can also be classified according to how their keys are administered and there are three types of cryptographic techniques:

1. Symmetric key cryptography: The sender and receiver share a single key. The sender uses this key to encrypt plain text and send the ciphertext to the receiver and this one applies the same to decrypt the message and retrieve the plain text.
2. Public key cryptography:  It can be freely distributed, while its paired private key still is secret and is used for encryption and the private key is used for decryption.
3. Hash functions: No key is used in this algorithm. A fixed-length hash value is calculated based on the plain text, which makes it impossible to retrieve the contents of the plain text, usually it is used to encrypt passwords.

For this reason, that cryptography has an important value in all this, without, it all the data would be available to anyone with the means to extract it and use it for their own purposes, companies, banks, and so on are involved with big data to develop and adapt to the needs of the world.

Professional Master’s Degree in Advanced Cybersecurity Management 

TECH Technological University created this programme because more processes, operations and basic tasks of all kinds are being performed through an electronic device. However, this progress also has certain risks as they are susceptible to cyber attacks. Thus, companies are looking for specialised cybersecurity professionals who can provide them with the right protection.

During the 12 months of training, the student has access to the programme’s contents at any time and from any device, allowing them to self-manage the study time with maximum flexibility and adapt to each student’s schedule. The contents are presented in an attractive and dynamic way in multimedia capsules that include audio, videos, images, diagrams, and conceptual maps to corroborate knowledge.

The programme deeps in relevant topics such as safety in system design and development, identity and access management in IT security, information security architectures and models, cryptography, communications security, software operation, security in cloud, risk analysis, among others.

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