Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is a form of public key cryptography based on the mathematical structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. Unlike traditional systems like RSA, which relies on the difficulty of factoring large integers, ECC provides comparable security with much smaller key sizes. This efficiency makes ECC particularly appealing for environments with limited resources, such as mobile devices and smart cards. The security of ECC is grounded in the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, which is considered hard to solve.
In practical terms, ECC allows for the generation of public and private keys, where the public key is derived from the private key using an elliptic curve point multiplication process. This results in a system that not only enhances security but also improves performance, as smaller keys mean faster computations and reduced storage requirements.
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