CEH Practice Question: Advanced Topics: Wireless, Cloud, IoT, Cryptography

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

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  ECC

  Why it's wrong here

  Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is an asymmetric encryption algorithm that relies on the mathematical properties of elliptic curves over finite fields. It uses a pair of mathematically linked keys, a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption, making it fundamentally different from symmetric algorithms. ECC is primarily employed for digital signatures and key exchange, offering strong security with smaller key sizes compared to other asymmetric methods.

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  RSA

  Why it's wrong here

  RSA, named after Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, is a widely adopted asymmetric encryption algorithm based on the computational difficulty of factoring large prime numbers. It utilizes distinct public and private keys, where the public key encrypts data and the private key decrypts it. Consequently, RSA is not a symmetric algorithm, as symmetric methods use a single shared secret key for both encryption and decryption processes.

• ✓

  3DES

  Why this is correct

  Triple DES (3DES) is a symmetric block cipher that applies the original Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm three times to each data block. It uses either two or three distinct keys to significantly enhance security beyond single DES, making it a more robust, albeit slower, symmetric encryption method. As a symmetric algorithm, 3DES employs the same key for both encryption and decryption operations.

• ✓

  AES

  Why this is correct

  The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a symmetric block cipher adopted by the U.S. government and widely used globally for securing sensitive data. It operates on fixed-size blocks of data using a single, shared secret key for both encryption and decryption. AES supports key sizes of 128, 192, or 256 bits, offering strong security and high performance, making it the preferred symmetric algorithm for modern applications.

• ✗

  MD5

  Why it's wrong here

  MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm 5) is a cryptographic hash function, not an encryption algorithm. It takes an input message of any length and produces a fixed-size, 128-bit hash value, or "fingerprint," that is designed to be unique for each input. Unlike encryption, MD5 is a one-way function, meaning it cannot be reversed to retrieve the original data, and it is now considered cryptographically broken due to collision vulnerabilities.

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