WHAT IS PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION ?

It is a cryptographic system that uses two keys -- a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message.


An important element to the public key system is that the public and private keys are related in such a way that only the public key can be used to encrypt messages and only the corresponding private key can be used to decrypt them. Moreover, it is hard to deduce the private key if you know the public key.


This encryption method is used by SSL to send crucial information between client and the server like the session key etc.

PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION