6. Encryption Schemes

6. Encryption Schemes

An encryption scheme, in the symmetric setting, consists of an encryption operation and a decryption operation, where the encryption operation produces a ciphertext from a message under a key, and the decryption operation recovers the message from the ciphertext under the same key. In a password-based encryption scheme, the key is a password.

A typical application of a password-based encryption scheme is a private-key protection method, where the message contains private-key information, as in PKCS #8. The encryption schemes defined here would be suitable encryption algorithms in that context.

Two schemes are specified in this section: PBES1 and PBES2. PBES2 is recommended for new applications; PBES1 is included only for compatibility with existing applications and is not recommended for new applications.