Which of the following is transmitted across a network?

• A. The Plaintext
• B. The Ciphertext
• C. Both The Plaintext And The Ciphertext
• D. Neither The Plaintext Nor The Ciphertext

Answer: (B)

When data travels over a network that is protecting its contents, it is transformed by encryption before it leaves the sender. This transformed form is the ciphertext. The recipient can turn that ciphertext back into readable plaintext only with the proper decryption key. So, in a secure transfer, the data actually moving across the network is the ciphertext, not the plaintext. Plaintext would only be exposed if encryption isn’t used, which is exactly why ciphertext is the typical form sent in protected communications. Transmitting both forms isn’t how encryption works, and neither form is what you’d expect to see across the network in a protected session without decryption.