Which of the following is an asymmetric cryptography algorithm invented by three mathematicians in the 1970s?

Which of the following is an asymmetric cryptography algorithm invented by three mathematicians in the 1970s?

• A. RSA
• B. DSA
• C. AES
• D. DES

Answer: (A)

Public-key cryptography lets you encrypt with a public key and decrypt with a private key, enabling secure communication without sharing a secret key first. The best example that matches the description is RSA, created in 1977 by three mathematicians—Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. RSA uses a public modulus derived from two large primes, along with a public exponent for encryption and a corresponding private exponent for decryption. Its security rests on the difficulty of factoring that large product, which makes the public key safe to share openly. RSA also supports digital signatures, where the private key signs data and the public key verifies it. Other options don’t fit the description as neatly: DES and AES are symmetric ciphers, meaning they use the same key for encryption and decryption. DSA is an asymmetric scheme based on discrete logarithms and was standardized later; it wasn’t invented in the 1970s by three mathematicians.

Public-key cryptography lets you encrypt with a public key and decrypt with a private key, enabling secure communication without sharing a secret key first. The best example that matches the description is RSA, created in 1977 by three mathematicians—Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. RSA uses a public modulus derived from two large primes, along with a public exponent for encryption and a corresponding private exponent for decryption. Its security rests on the difficulty of factoring that large product, which makes the public key safe to share openly. RSA also supports digital signatures, where the private key signs data and the public key verifies it.

Other options don’t fit the description as neatly: DES and AES are symmetric ciphers, meaning they use the same key for encryption and decryption. DSA is an asymmetric scheme based on discrete logarithms and was standardized later; it wasn’t invented in the 1970s by three mathematicians.