I learnt the theory behind RSA encryption primarily by choice as part of one of my freely chosen university projects, but I’m aware that it’s one of those things that many people seem to shy away from.
Interestingly, it seems that an equivalent algorithm to RSA was created at GCHQ by James Ellis, Clifford Cocks, and Malcolm Williamson four years previously in 1973. Despite its age (having been released in 1977), RSA encryption is still one of the most widely used asymmetric encryption algorithms in use today. RSA (short for Rivest–Shamir–Adleman - named after its creators) is an asymmetric public-key encryption system that is very commonly used in real world applications.
