{"id":10731,"date":"2011-09-15T15:05:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T15:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/secret-key\/"},"modified":"2011-09-15T15:05:44","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T15:05:44","slug":"secret-key","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key","title":{"rendered":"Secret Key"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_secret_key_mean\">What Does Secret Key Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A secret key is the piece of information or parameter that is used to encrypt and decrypt messages in a symmetric, or secret-key, encryption.<\/p>\n<p>In assymetric encryption, two separate keys are used. One is a public key and the other is a secret key. <\/p>\n<p>A secret key may also be known as a private key.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_secret_key\">Techopedia Explains Secret Key<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When using symmetric encryption, only one key is used for encryption and decryption. However, in asymmetric cryptography there is both a private key and a public key involved in the encryption and decryption processes. The secret key can be kept by one person or exchanged with someone else when sending encrypted messages. If only one key is available for both encryption and decryption, both the sender and receiver of a message have to have a copy of the secret key to be able to read the message.<\/p>\n<p> The most difficult aspect of this type of encryption is how to distribute the key to a second party without affecting security.<\/p>\n<p>Secret key cryptography systems are often classified to be either stream ciphers or block ciphers. Stream ciphers work on a single bit at a time and also use some kind of feedback mechanism so that the key changes regularly. A block cipher, on the other hand, encrypts one data block at a time by using precisely the same key on every block. <\/p>\n<p>The most accepted secret key cryptography scheme is Data Encryption Standard (DES) cryptography. Other cryptography systems used for secret-key encryption include the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and CAST-128\/256.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Secret Key Mean? A secret key is the piece of information or parameter that is used to encrypt and decrypt messages in a symmetric, or secret-key, encryption. In assymetric encryption, two separate keys are used. One is a public key and the other is a secret key. A secret key may also be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[218,233],"class_list":["post-10731","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-cybersecurity","definitioncat-encryption"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Secret Key? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Secret Key and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Secret Key\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Secret Key and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Secret Key\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-15T15:05:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key\"},\"wordCount\":265,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/24865\/secret-key\",\"name\":\"What is a Secret Key? 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