Symmetric encryption uses a single key and works on blocks of text. This method works quicker than others. While using this method, it is important to maintain the confidentiality of the secret key, and both the sender and receiver should use the same key, which is a disadvantage of this method.
Let's look at an example and understand how we can encrypt a message or block of text:
- Here, we use the encrypt method, where we read a block of text from a file, encrypt it using a symmetric algorithm, and write the encrypted content to a different file.
- The encrypt method accepts an instance of SymmetricAlgorithm, which is used to create an instance of ICryptoTransform by passing a key and initial vector. The system allows you to generate your own key or use the one it generates.
- Then, we create a memory stream to store the buffer at runtime:
public static...
