The Microsoft RSA Base Provider (which comes with the crypto API and provides a default CSP set of functionality) consists of a software implementation of the PROV_RSA_FULL provider type. The RSA public-key cipher is used for both key exchange and digital signatures, with a key length of 512 bits. The RC2 and RC4 encryption algorithms are implemented with a key length of 40 bits. The MD2, MD5, and SHA hashing algorithms are also provided.
NOTE
RSA is a public-key encryption algorithm that is based on the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers. It was invented in 1977 and gets its name from the first letter in the last names of each of its three inventors: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman.
The following sections describe the crypto API functions, grouped in four categories:
NOTE
More detailed information about each function’s parameters and usage is available in the crypto API documentation file, which ships with the crypto API SDK.