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🔐 Simple Symmetric Encryption in Python

This project demonstrates the basics of symmetric encryption using Python and the cryptography library. It's a great starting point for beginners interested in cybersecurity, cryptography, or contributing to open-source security tools.

📚 What You'll Learn

  • How to generate secure keys
  • How to encrypt and decrypt messages
  • Basic key management (saving & loading keys)
  • How Fernet (AES-based encryption) works under the hood

🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/simple-encryption-python.git
cd simple-encryption-python

2. Install Dependencies

Make sure you have Python 3.6+ installed.

Install required package using pip:

pip install cryptography

3. Run the Code

python simple_encryption.py

On first run, it will generate a secret.key file that is used for both encryption and decryption. Each time you run the script, it:

  • Loads the existing key
  • Encrypts a sample message
  • Decrypts it back and displays the result

📂 File Structure

simple-encryption-python/
│
├── simple_encryption.py   # Main script to run encryption and decryption
├── secret.key             # Auto-generated AES-based symmetric key (DO NOT SHARE)
├── README.md              # Documentation

🔒 Security Note

This example is for educational purposes only. If you’re building a production-grade application:

  • Never store raw keys in plaintext
  • Use environment variables or secure vaults (e.g., AWS KMS, HashiCorp Vault)
  • Handle exceptions and errors securely

🧠 How It Works (In Brief)

  • Fernet is a module in the cryptography package that provides:

    • AES-128 in CBC mode
    • HMAC-SHA256 authentication
    • Random IVs for each encryption

  • The encryption key is:

    • Generated once and saved to secret.key
    • Loaded on subsequent runs

  • The message is:

    • Encrypted using .encrypt()
    • Decrypted using .decrypt()

💡 Sample Output

[*] Key loaded from 'secret.key'

Original Message: This is a secret message.
Encrypted Message: b'gAAAAABlZ...'
Decrypted Message: This is a secret message.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! You can help by:

  • Improving the CLI interface
  • Adding file encryption support
  • Implementing password-based key derivation
  • Writing unit tests

To contribute:

  1. Fork the repo
  2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b my-feature)
  3. Commit your changes
  4. Push and create a Pull Request

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

👨‍💻 Author

Afolabi Adewale
A data and security enthusiast exploring the intersection of Python, encryption, and open-source software.
GitHub Profile

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