Protecting data in transit

Almost all Internet traffic is sent in the clear. This means that it can be read by software on any host computer through which the network packets are routed without having to be de crypted. This should be of little concern to most Internet users because most of the packets traveling on the Internet contain data that is not sensitive from the users viewpoint, and is of no interest to Internet attackers.Several types of information traveling across the network that are sensitive to users, and of interest to Internet attackers, are discussed in the following sections.