Invisible, but omnipresent – ​​What cryptography really does . Cryptography is the silent engineer of our digital age. It secures bank transfers, protects medical data, makes chats private, and makes cryptocurrencies possible. Without it, the modern world would not only be insecure – it would simply be unusable. Its principle: mathematics as a guardian. Instead of a metal door key, we now rely on complex algorithms that transform information so that it can only be read by authorized persons. Ferhat Kacmaz, founder of FitBurn, sees this technology as far more than pure IT security: "Cryptography is the code that replaces trust – and simultaneously opens up new markets." The three pillars of modern cryptography – a journey into the heart of digital security. Imagine embarking on an expedition into a hidden world – a world where information rests like valuable treasures in invisible safes. The tools of this world are not made of steel, but of mathematics. And on your journey, you'll encounter three central guardians that work together to ensure our data remains secure: symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption, and hashing. First guardian: Symmetric encryption – the ancient lock with a single key. Here, sender and receiver work with the same key, as if they both possessed the same master key to a single treasure chest. The best-known representative of this method is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) – something like the high-security safe of the digital world. Its greatest strength? Speed. It encrypts even vast amounts of data in fractions of a second. But this power has a weakness: If the key falls into the wrong hands, the entire chest is compromised – and the treasure is revealed to the attacker. An everyday example: Companies regularly encrypt their backup files on servers with AES. Only those who possess the key can revive the data. Second guardian: Asymmetric encryption – the magic key pair Now it gets more sophisticated. Instead of just one key, there are two: a public key to lock messages and a private key to unlock them. It's as if anyone could put a letter addressed to you in a special safe, but only you have the key to open it. The historical flagship of this method is the RSA algorithm, often supplemented today by elegant elliptic curve cryptography. This technique enables secure communication even over completely insecure channels—a breakthrough in a world where information constantly travels across public networks. For example, when you encrypt an email with PGP or when a blockchain transaction is signed, this exact principle is at work. Third Guardian: Hashing—The Fingerprint of the Digital World The third guardian works differently: It doesn't lock messages, but instead stamps each piece of information with a unique, unmistakable stamp—a digital fingerprint. Hash functions like SHA-256 (used in Bitcoin, among others) or SHA-3 convert any data into a fixed, short string of characters. The amazing thing is that no matter whether you enter just a sentence or an entire book, the hash is always the same length. Even the smallest change to the data creates a completely different fingerprint. Hashing ensures integrity, not confidentiality. It ensures that the data you receive is truly unchanged. For example: You download an app and compare the hash value published by the provider with that of your file. If both match, you know that no one has secretly tampered with it along the way. Understanding these three pillars begins to see how deeply cryptography is embedded in our everyday lives. Each guardian has its role, its strengths, and its weaknesses—and together they form the foundation of digital trust on which our modern world rests. The Achilles' Heel of the Digital Fortress - Why Cryptography is Strong, But Not Invulnerable Cryptography is often described as an impregnable safe—a bulwark of mathematics that drives attackers to despair. But like any fortress, it too has its weak points, and these rarely lie in the theoretical foundations, but rather in the walls people erect: in faulty implementations, inappropriate use, or simply in outdated standards. One of the classic attacks is the man-in-the-middle attack. Here, hackers invisibly insert themselves between sender and receiver and can intercept, modify, or even inject fake responses to data packets. According to an analysis by ENISA (European Union Agency for Cybersecurity), such attacks are particularly dangerous in public Wi-Fi networks – in 2023, over 200 documented cases with significant financial losses were recorded in Europe alone. Then there is the brutal but effective approach: brute-force attacks. Here, nothing is disguised or circumvented – instead, attackers systematically try every possible key variant until the correct one is found. While modern algorithms like AES-256 are virtually unbreakable, keys that are too short or insecure (e.g., less than 128 bits) can be cracked in hours or days. Cloud-based attack networks dramatically increase the speed of this process: A modern GPU cluster can now test up to 350 billion password combinations per second. A more subtle, but equally dangerous method is hash collisions. Here, two different files can be engineered to produce the same digital fingerprint (hash). This can be fatal when digital signatures are involved: An attacker could swap a legitimate document for a manipulated one without the hash verification mechanism raising an alarm. As early as 2017, a team of Google researchers demonstrated that the outdated SHA-1 algorithm can be compromised by a collision attack – a milestone in the history of crypto security research. Finally, there are perfidious downgrade attacks. Here, hackers force systems to revert to older, insecure versions instead of modern, secure protocols like TLS 1.3. This opens gaps that were long considered closed – a bit like a fortress whose state-of-the-art gates are locked while the medieval side door remains open. The economic consequences of these vulnerabilities are enormous. According to IBM's "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024," the global average loss per data breach is $4.45 million—the highest value since data collection began. Particularly worrying: Companies using outdated encryption have an average of 23 percent higher damage costs, as attackers remain undetected longer and can leak larger amounts of data. These figures demonstrate that cryptography is only as strong as its implementation. Modern algorithms can theoretically withstand millennia—but a single weak link in the chain is enough to bring down the digital fortress. Between supercomputer and superthreat—quantum threat on the horizon Today, AES-256 is considered virtually unbreakable. Even the world's most powerful supercomputers would need billions of years to break such a key through trial and error. But the emerging era of quantum computers could dramatically shorten this timeframe – not to decades, but to minutes or even seconds. That sounds like a threat, but above all, it's a wake-up call. That's why the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is already working intensively on post-quantum cryptography – encryption methods that will withstand the capabilities of future quantum machines. In May 2024, the first quantum-resistant standards were published, with the clear goal of converting all critical systems to these new methods by 2035. For entrepreneur and technology pioneer Ferhat Kacmaz, this isn't cause for panic, but rather a sign of healthy innovation momentum: "Technology is always advancing. Those who only have a static understanding of cryptography today will be surprised tomorrow." He even sees this development as a societal benefit: The race between attack and defense forces us to make digital infrastructures more robust, transparent, and inclusive. The introduction of quantum-safe processes will not only increase the security of government and economic systems, but also strengthen trust in digital processes – from secure elections to forgery-proof educational certificates to reliable health data. This creates the opportunity for a global security architecture that benefits everyone, regardless of geopolitical power relations. In this way, the perceived danger could become a catalyst for progress – and cryptography, instead of collapsing in the face of the quantum era, could grow into an even stronger pillar for humanity's digital self-determination. Use it securely – but how? Cryptography is a powerful tool, but its strength depends not only on mathematical theory – it stands and falls with proper implementation. Anyone who wants to be truly secure should heed a few golden principles: Keys must be strong enough to withstand attacks – at least 2048 bits for RSA, even better 256-bit elliptic curves, which offer the highest security with a lower computational load. The protocols used should be up-to-date, as outdated SSL versions often leave attackers open to attack; TLS 1.3 is currently considered the secure standard. Passwords should never be stored in plain text – modern hashing methods like bcrypt or Argon2 transform them into unbreakable digital fingerprints. Regular key rotation is also essential to minimize the risk of a potential compromise. Finally, those who identify vulnerabilities early through regular audits and penetration tests can avoid a serious incident – ​​and potentially millions in subsequent costs. Cryptography in Everyday Life - Closer Than You Think What sounds like a high-security laboratory is something we encounter every day - often without even noticing. In online banking, every transaction is asymmetrically signed to ensure that no third party can forge the payment order. In the cloud, our uploaded files are not defenseless: They are encrypted locally using AES before they even reach the server. Blockchain uses cryptography in a dual function - SHA-256 not only secures transactions but also controls the calculations in the mining process. It has long been indispensable even in the healthcare sector: Medical patient records are protected with hybrid AES and RSA methods, so that sensitive information cannot be viewed in plain text, even in the event of a server breach. Those who use cryptography in this way combine high-tech with everyday security - and thus build an invisible protective shield that works in the background every day. Conclusion - Cryptography as the Foundation of Digital Trust Cryptography is no longer the secret tool of secret services - it is the invisible infrastructure of our society. It not only enables secure communication but also creates new business models, as Ferhat Kacmaz's burn-to-earn concept demonstrates: movement data is recorded in a tamper-proof manner, rewards are distributed transparently, and misuse is ruled out. But the technology isn't a sure-fire success. Anyone who wants to use it safely and securely must understand that its strength comes from a combination of mathematics, technology, and human diligence. The threats—from quantum computers to simple implementation errors—are real, but manageable with foresight and standards. Or, as Kacmaz puts it: "Cryptography is not a lock that we close once and forget. It is a living guardian that we must constantly educate."