Cryptography Family Sorter

About this interactive

Modern Cryptography drew a family tree: cryptography splits into hashing and encryption, and encryption splits into symmetric and asymmetric. The rest of the module filled in the branches, and also kept pointing at the protocols that use them. This practice brings all of it back at once. Hashing makes a one-way, fixed-length fingerprint that can never be decrypted. MD5 and the SHA family are the examples, and you use them to store passwords and check that files have not been changed. Symmetric encryption uses one shared key: the same key encrypts and decrypts. DES, Triple DES and AES are block ciphers, RC4 is a stream cipher, and all of them are fast enough to encrypt bulk data. Asymmetric, or public key, cryptography gives each side different keys, a public key anyone can see and a private key that stays secret. RSA encrypts and verifies identity with a key pair; Diffie-Hellman uses public and private keys to agree on a shared key. Strictly, Diffie-Hellman is a key exchange rather than encryption, which is why this bin says public key and not encryption. A protocol is not an algorithm at all. It is a set of rules for communication, such as TLS, IPsec or SSH, and it chooses algorithms from the other three families to do its work.

What you'll learn

Place a named algorithm or a description into its family: hashing, symmetric encryption or asymmetric (public key) cryptography
Tell a protocol such as TLS, IPsec or SSH apart from the algorithms it uses

Aligned to

ISC2 CC

5.1 Understand data security

CompTIA Security+

1.4 Explain the importance of using appropriate cryptographic solutions.

Cisco CCST Cybersecurity

1.4 Explain encryption methods and applications

Key terms

Hash Function: A mathematical algorithm that converts input data of any size into a fixed-size output value used to verify data integrity.
Symmetric Encryption: An encryption method that uses the same key for both encryption and decryption.
Asymmetric Encryption: An encryption method that uses a public key to encrypt data and a private key to decrypt it.
Protocol: A set of rules governing the format and transmission of data between devices.
Secure Hash Algorithm: Secure Hash Algorithm is a family of cryptographic hash functions standardized by NIST, including SHA-1 (deprecated for most uses), SHA-256, and SHA-3, used for data integrity verification, digital signatures, and certificate validation.
Message Digest 5: Message Digest 5 is a widely used cryptographic hash function producing a 128-bit digest; MD5 is considered cryptographically broken due to collision vulnerabilities and must not be used for security-critical purposes such as digital signatures or certificate validation.
Advanced Encryption Standard: A symmetric encryption algorithm widely used to secure data, supporting key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits.
Diffie-Hellman: A key exchange algorithm that allows two parties to independently generate a shared secret over an insecure channel using two private keys, two public keys, and a shared value, without ever transmitting the secret itself.
RSA: An asymmetric encryption algorithm based on the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers, widely used for secure data transmission.
Transport Layer Security: A cryptographic protocol that provides secure communication over a network, successor to SSL.

Topics

Interactive Categorize

About TechKnowSurge

TechKnowSurge builds IT and cybersecurity professionals through hands-on, concept-first training built around real understanding — not memorization. Free interactive tools, structured programs, and 25+ years of real-world experience, all in one place.

Explore free tools and programs →