Public key cryptography basics state that

Public key cryptography basics state that

• A. Private key Encrypts and Public key Decrypts
• B. Public key Encrypts and Private key Decrypts
• C. Public and Private keys both encrypt and decrypt with equal privileges
• D. Crypto uses symmetric keys only

Answer: (B)

Public key cryptography uses a pair of keys: a public key that can be shared with anyone, and a private key that stays secret. The idea is that someone who wants to send you a confidential message uses your public key to encrypt it, and only you, with the corresponding private key, can decrypt it. This setup provides confidentiality without needing to share a secret key in advance. The private key isn’t used for encryption in this typical confidentiality flow; encrypting with the private key would let anyone with the public key decrypt, which isn’t the standard goal here. Symmetric-key systems, by contrast, rely on the same secret key for both encryption and decryption, which is a different approach. In practice, many systems first use public-key cryptography to securely exchange a symmetric key, then use fast symmetric encryption for the actual data. So the statement that public key encrypts and private key decrypts reflects how public-key cryptography normally works.

Public key cryptography uses a pair of keys: a public key that can be shared with anyone, and a private key that stays secret. The idea is that someone who wants to send you a confidential message uses your public key to encrypt it, and only you, with the corresponding private key, can decrypt it. This setup provides confidentiality without needing to share a secret key in advance. The private key isn’t used for encryption in this typical confidentiality flow; encrypting with the private key would let anyone with the public key decrypt, which isn’t the standard goal here. Symmetric-key systems, by contrast, rely on the same secret key for both encryption and decryption, which is a different approach. In practice, many systems first use public-key cryptography to securely exchange a symmetric key, then use fast symmetric encryption for the actual data. So the statement that public key encrypts and private key decrypts reflects how public-key cryptography normally works.