RSA and Hybrid Encryption Concepts for MQL5 Applications
Summary
The article introduces RSA’s public and private keys, modular exponentiation, and the need to encode messages as numbers. It uses a deliberately tiny numerical example to illustrate encryption and decryption, then discusses big integers, key generation, padding, and implementing the arithmetic in MQL5. It also proposes a hybrid design: use RSA to exchange a key and AES for faster message encryption.
The practical motivation is protecting communication between an Expert Advisor and a server when the program must avoid external DLL dependencies. The document explains that transport encryption alone does not protect secrets embedded in an EA, but its proposed server-based approach is not supported by a security analysis or performance tests. The numerical example is explicitly insecure, and the article’s production guidance depends on correct padding, key sizes, and key handling. Its MQL5 implementation should therefore be treated as educational material rather than a reviewed cryptographic library.
Key ideas
- RSA uses a public key for encryption and a corresponding private key for decryption.
- Modular exponentiation illustrates the RSA operation, but tiny example values provide no security.
- Real RSA messages require suitable encoding, padding, large keys, and careful key management.
- The article proposes RSA for key exchange and AES for encrypting larger messages.
- Avoiding DLL dependencies is a design motivation for implementing cryptographic operations in MQL5.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.