Book Image

OpenStack Cloud Security

By : Fabio Alessandro Locati
Book Image

OpenStack Cloud Security

By: Fabio Alessandro Locati

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (14 chapters)
OpenStack Cloud Security
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Symmetric/asymmetric comparison and synergies


We have seen that symmetric and asymmetric encryption feature multiple differences. Let's recap these differences as follows:

Domain

Symmetric

Asymmetric

Able to grant

Confidential

Confidential, offering integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation

Needed key(s)

A single shared key

A public key and a private key

Key exchange

Complex and offline

Simple and online

Scalability

Not scalable, keys increase exponentially

Scalable

Key size

Small

Big

Implementation speed

Fast

Slow

Best for

Bulk data

Small amount of data, key exchange, digital envelopes, digital signatures, and digital certificate

As you can see, in multiple domains, symmetric and asymmetric keys are exact opposites. This means that they can be used together to fill each other's weaknesses. A way to do so is to create a hybrid encryption to initialize the communication using asymmetric encryption, and in this communication, exchange securely a key that will then...