Data Integrity

Use Authenticated Encryption for Data You Must Trust

Encrypting sensitive data can hide its contents while still leaving an important question unanswered: has the encrypted data been changed? If an application decrypts modified ciphertext without a reliable integrity check, it may consume attacker-influenced plaintext even though the attacker never learned the encryption key. That distinction matters anywhere decrypted data affects a security decision, a payment amount, a permission, a destination, or another meaningful application state. Confidentiality answers who can read the data. Integrity answers whether the protected data is the same data that an authorized key holder produced.