A systems administrator uses a key to encrypt a message being sent to a peer in a different branch office. The peer then uses the same key to decrypt the message. Which of the following describes this example?

This scenario describes symmetric encryption because the same key is used for both encrypting and decrypting the message. Symmetric algorithms are efficient and commonly used for bulk data encryption. Asymmetric encryption, also known as public-key cryptography, uses a pair of keys: a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. Hashing is a one-way function that creates a fixed-size output (hash value) from input data, primarily used for integrity checks, not encryption. Salting involves adding a random string to a password before hashing it to protect against rainbow table attacks, and is not a form of encryption itself.