Decryption

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What Does Decryption Mean?

Decryption is the process of transforming data that has been rendered unreadable through encryption back to its unencrypted form. In decryption, the system extracts and converts the garbled data and transforms it to texts and images that are easily understandable not only by the reader but also by the system. Decryption may be accomplished manually or automatically. It may also be performed with a set of keys or passwords.

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Techopedia Explains Decryption

One of the foremost reasons for implementing an encryption-decryption system is privacy. As information travels over the World Wide Web, it becomes subject to scrutiny and access from unauthorized individuals or organizations. As a result, data is encrypted to reduce data loss and theft. Some of the common items that are encrypted include email messages, text files, images, user data and directories. The person in charge of decryption receives a prompt or window in which a password may be entered to access encrypted information.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.