Security in Computing 5th Edition by Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Charles P Pfleeger, Jonathan Margulies

Exercise 36

Does a VPN use symmetric or asymmetric encryption? Explain your answer.

Step 1 of 2

VPN uses both Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption

To provide secure remote access to the individual user in a network, the infrastructure used is known as Virtual private access (VPN).

VPN uses both symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption for the security of the data. The description of both the encryptions is given below:

• Symmetric encryption: The encryption methodology, in which the same key is used for encryption and decryption of data at both the sender end and receiver end, is known as symmetric encryption.

The main disadvantage of symmetric encryption is that the data packet which is encrypted passes through the unsecure network. If someone has steals the secret key, then he can steal all the data from the network.