What is Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and where is Pretty Good Privacy protocol applied the most?
Pretty good privacy (PGP) is a protocol employed to encrypt and decrypt email over the Internet and further provides authentication of messages among communicating parties through digital signatures and encryption. PGP is the de facto standard of email security and specifically ensures email security by encrypting the message so that it can make the communication among parties secure or private. And it was one the first asymmetric cryptography available for free and has been widely adopted to protect individuals and organizations email communications. Furthermore, it is an email encryption system employed for sending encrypted emails and encrypting sensitive files.
PGP employs three step process to achieve email security:
- It generates random session key or public encryption algorithm that can be used once and that cannot be guessed
- The random session key is then encrypted using the recipient’s public key. And the recipient shares the session key with entities they want to receive messages from.
- The sender of the message submits their session key so that the recipient can decrypt the message using their secret key
PGP encryption techniques can be used for the following purposes:
- Encrypting email communications
- Digital signature verification
- Encrypting sensitive files