In this blog, we will learn, why is end to end encryption important? How does end-to-end encryption work? Encryption Challenges and Use Cases
What Is E2EE?
A reliable technique for secure communication, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) makes sure that only the sender and the intended receiver may read a message or piece of data. This implies that the data’s content cannot be accessed by any third party, including the service provider, middlemen, hackers, or governments.
How does end-to-end encryption work?
- Encryption at the Source: Before data is ever transmitted over a network, it is encrypted on the sender’s device.
- Encrypted in Transit: Throughout the network, the data is kept in an unintelligible encrypted format. Without the decryption key, the data cannot be read, even if it is intercepted.
- Decryption at the destination: Using a special private key that no one else has, it can only be decrypted by the recipient’s device.
Asymmetric-key cryptography, sometimes referred to as public-key cryptography, is crucial to this procedure:
- Pairs of keys: Asymmetric-key cryptography uses two mathematically related keys a public key and a private key in contrast to symmetric-key cryptography, which uses a single shared key.
- Public Key: The public key is freely accessible. Sending a secret message requires encrypting it with the recipient’s public key.
- Private Key: The owner of the private key is required to keep it confidential. The message encrypted using their public key can only be decrypted by the owner of the matching private key. The public key can be freely shared without jeopardizing security with this technique, which fixes the key distribution issue.
- Digital Signatures: Asymmetric-key cryptography is also utilized in digital signatures, in which a person uses their private key to encrypt a cryptographic hash of a message. The origin and integrity of the communication can then be confirmed by recipients by using the sender’s public key to validate the signature.
A public key can be included in a certificate that has been digitally signed by a recognized certificate authority (CA), whose public key is widely used and trusted, to guarantee its legitimacy.
Why is end to end encryption important?
- Confidentiality: Your data is protected from unauthorised access.
- Privacy: It shields private data from prying eyes and hackers. This enables the use of blockchain’s decentralization and immutability features while maintaining the privacy of content.
- Integrity: It guarantees that no changes were made to the data while it was being transmitted. A communication cannot be decrypted by the recipient if it is changed during in transit.
- Decentralization: Despite the ledger’s public nature, E2EE aids in the development of decentralized applications (dApps) where data is kept private. Because users depend on the mathematics of encryption rather than centralized organizations, it is consistent with the trustless philosophy of blockchain.
- Security: It offers defence against illegal access, hacking, and censorship.
- User Control: Individuals maintain authority over their own data and keys.
What E2EE Protects Against
E2EE mainly defends against two dangers:
- Prying Eyes: It stops message information from being read in transit by anyone other than the sender and intended receiver.
- Tampering: It guards against unforeseen changes to encrypted messages, rendering any attempts at tampering evident as the message would no longer be able to be decrypted.
Differences from Other Encryption Methods
Because only the sender and recipient endpoints can decrypt and read the communication, E2EE is special.
- Symmetric Key Encryption: Also referred to as secret key encryption or single-key encryption, this technique encrypts and decrypts data using a single key. Although AES offers an unbreakable layer of encryption, there is a risk that an intermediary could intercept the key because it needs to be sent to the recipient. The decryption key cannot be accessed by intermediates with E2EE’s two-key scheme.
- Encryption in Transit: This tactic entails the sender encrypting messages, purposefully decrypting them at a third-party server, and then re-encrypting and sending them to the recipient. The communication may employ two-key encryption and therefore unreadable while in transit, but it is not E2EE since it is decrypted before it reaches its intended recipient, potentially exposing vulnerabilities at that time. One example of encryption in transit is the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.
End to End Encryption Challenges
Notwithstanding End to End Encryption Challenges and blockchain:
- Key Management: Users are in charge of keeping their private keys safe. The encrypted data is rendered permanently unusable in the event that a private key is lost.
- Scalability and Performance: When compared to centralised platforms, the decentralised and encrypted nature of these systems can occasionally result in slower performance and higher resource requirements.
- Usability: E2EE may make systems more difficult for regular consumers to operate.
- Regulatory Concerns/Too Much Privacy: Regulations requiring access to data for audit or law enforcement purposes may clash with E2EE’s high level of privacy. Strong encryption may be opposed by governments because of worries about illegal activity.
- Metadata: E2EE does not hide metadata, such as the participants or the date and time the message was transmitted, but it does safeguard the communication’s content. Malicious actors may be able to find evidence in this metadata.
- Compromised Endpoints: An attacker may be able to view the communication before encryption or after decryption, or even retrieve keys to carry out a man-in-the-middle assault, if the device of the sender or the recipient is compromised.
- Vulnerable Intermediaries: While claiming E2EE, some providers also offer encryption in transit, which creates a point of vulnerability by briefly decrypting data and storing it on an intermediary server.
- Not Future-Proof: There is conjecture that present cryptography may ultimately become outdated due to quantum computing.
End to End Encryption Use Case
When privacy and data security are top priorities, E2EE is essential. This comprises:
- Secure texting: E2EE enables private, censorship-resistant texting through platforms like Status and apps like Apple’s iMessage, Jabber, and others that use Signal Protocol.
- Confidential Documents and Records: In the medical field, patient records can be encrypted using a blockchain, which stores a hash for an unchangeable log. The patient can then give certain doctors access by sharing the decryption keys.
- Secure Financial goods: E2EE facilitates safe financial goods such as digital wallets and exchanges. Cryptocurrencies like Mobilecoin, which encrypt transaction data, and sealed-bid auctions are two examples. E2EE can also be used by smart contracts to automate contracts without disclosing private information.
- Private Data Marketplaces: With “fully homomorphic encryption” (FHE), which permits computation on encrypted data without decryption, users can sell encrypted data for AI training models.
- Decentralised Cloud Storage: Users can encrypt their data client-side before sharing them using services like Storj, Sia, Filecoin, or IPFS, guaranteeing privacy because only the owner can decrypt them.
- Enterprise Blockchains: For authorized users, privacy administrators in Quorum and other systems encrypt transaction payloads.
E2EE is used or has been adopted by numerous well-known messaging services, including as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Zoom. E2EE is integrated with payment systems, such as electronic point-of-sale (POS) systems, in order to safeguard private client information and adhere to laws such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).