Term: encryption key

An encryption key is nothing more than a number used to scramble (encrypt) data in such a way that it can later be unscrambled and restored to its original form. A common example of an encryption key is a password whose numeric representation may be used for this purpose. Encryption key pairs are two numbers that share a mathematical relationship such that data encrypted by one key of the pair can only be decrypted by the other key of that same pair.