I. Understanding Cryptography Cryptography is the art and science of encoding and decoding information to keep it secure from unauthorized access. At its core, cryptography relies on mathematical algorithms to transform readable data (plaintext) into an unreadable format (ciphertext) and vice versa. The two primary types of cryptography are:Symmetric Cryptography: This method uses a single key for both encryption and decryption. The sender and receiver must share the same key, which poses cha...