Symmetric Encryption

Question

What do you mean by Symmetric Encryption?

Answer 1

Symmetric algorithms use the same key for both encryption and decryption. Such algorithms primarily do logic operations (XOR), substitution (replacement of a plain text symbol with another symbol in the set of all possible symbols), and transposition (changing the order of the symbols in the plaintext). Symmetric algorithms are very fast since the operations are relatively simple. Hence, symmetric algorithms are used to encrypt/decrypt large quantities of information.