Demystifying Cryptography with OpenSSL 3.0

OpenSSL is a library and application suite that enables software developers and other engineers to encrypt and decrypt data, use digital signatures, create and verify X.509 certificates, and make secure TLS connections. In this book, you'll learn how to use popular features of OpenSSL and make the most of cryptography and TLS in your programs.

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Use OpenSSL to add security features to your application, including cryptographically strong symmetric and asymmetric encryption, digital signatures, SSL/TLS connectivity, and PKI handling

Key Features

Secure your applications against common network security threats using OpenSSL
Get to grips with the latest version of OpenSSL, its new features, and advantages
Learn about PKI, cryptography, certificate authorities, and more using real-world examples

Book DescriptionSecurity and networking are essential features of software today. The modern internet is full of worms, Trojan horses, men-in-the-middle, and other threats. This is why maintaining security is more important than ever.

OpenSSL is one of the most widely used and essential open source projects on the internet for this purpose. If you are a software developer, system administrator, network security engineer, or DevOps specialist, you've probably stumbled upon this toolset in the past – but how do you make the most out of it? With the help of this book, you will learn the most important features of OpenSSL, and gain insight into its full potential.

This book contains step-by-step explanations of essential cryptography and network security concepts, as well as practical examples illustrating the usage of those concepts. You'll start by learning the basics, such as how to perform symmetric encryption and calculate message digests. Next, you will discover more about cryptography: MAC and HMAC, public and private keys, and digital signatures. As you progress, you will explore best practices for using X.509 certificates, public key infrastructure, and TLS connections.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to use the most popular features of OpenSSL, allowing you to implement cryptography and TLS in your applications and network infrastructure.

What you will learn

Understand how to use symmetric cryptography
Get to grips with message digests, MAC, and HMAC
Discover asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures
Focus on how to apply and use X.509 certificates
Dive into TLS and its proper usage
Manage advanced and special usages of TLS
Find out how to run a mini certificate authority for your organization

Who this book is forThis book is for software developers, system administrators, DevOps specialists, network security engineers, and analysts, or anyone who wants to keep their applications and infrastructure secure. Software developers will learn how to use the OpenSSL library to empower their software with cryptography and TLS. DevOps professionals and sysadmins will learn how to work with cryptographic keys and certificates on the command line, and how to set up a mini-CA for their organization. A basic understanding of security and networking is required.