public key encryption

System of encryption that uses two keys to lock and unlock the encrypted information. If A sends a message to B, A will use B's public key to encrypt the message and B will use their own private key to unlock the message. The beauty of this system is that the two keys are related in such a way that only the public key can encrypt the information and only the private key can unlock the information, and it is virtually impossible to deduce the private key from the public key.