In order to securely communicate using PGP, the sender of an email must do which of the following when sending an email to a recipient for the first time?
A. Import the recipient’s public key B. Import the recipient’s private key C. Export the sender’s private key D. Export the sender’s public key
Answer: A
Explanation: See step 4 below.
1.
When a user encrypts plaintext with PGP, PGP first compresses the plaintext.
2.
PGP then creates a session key, which is a one-time-only secret key.
3.
This session key works with a very secure, fast conventional encryption algorithm to encrypt the plaintext; the result is ciphertext.
4.
Once the data is encrypted, the session key is then encrypted to the recipient’s public key. This public key-encrypted session key is transmitted along with the ciphertext to the recipient.