The RSA algorithm is a widely-used public-key cryptographic system that enables secure data transmission and digital signatures. Named after its inventors—Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman—who developed the algorithm in 1977, RSA relies on the mathematical properties of prime numbers for its security. In RSA cryptography, a user generates a pair of keys: a public key, which is openly distributed, and a private key, which remains confidential. The public key is used for encrypting data or verifying digital signatures, while the private key is used for decrypting data or creating digital signatures. RSA's security strength resides in the computational difficulty of factoring large composite numbers back into their prime factors, a task that becomes increasingly challenging as key sizes grow. This makes RSA suitable for a variety of applications, including secure email, digital certificates, and secure web browsing through protocols like HTTPS.