key encryption
key encryption. A software-cryptography system that generates and employs a secure key pair, one public key and one private key, to verify a digital signature and decipher a secure, coded document. • The public key is known to all possible receivers of a message. The private key is known only to the message’s sender. Key encryption transforms the message’s characters into an indecipherable “hash.” A person who has the signer’s public key can decipher the message and detect whether it has been altered and whether it was transmitted using the sender’s private key. It does not necessarily identify the sender; identity is verified using a digital certificate. — Also termed public-key encryption. See DIGITAL CERTIFICATE; HASH NUMBER.
