公开密钥加密public-key cryptography，也称为非对称(密钥)加密。
非对称密钥，是指一对加密密钥与解密密钥，这两个密钥是数学相关，用某用户密钥加密后所得的信息，只能用该用户的解密密钥才能解密。如果知道了其中一个，并不能计算出另外一个。因此如果公开了一对密钥中的一个，并不会危害到另外一个的秘密性质。称公开的密钥为公钥；不公开的密钥为私钥。
Public-key cryptography, also known as asymmetric cryptography, is a class of cryptographic algorithms which require two separate keys, one of which is secret (or private) and one of which is public.
如果加密密钥是公开的，这用于客户给私钥所有者上传加密的数据，这被称作为公开密钥加密(狭义)。例如，网络银行的客户发给银行网站的账户操作的加密数据。
如果解密密钥是公开的，用私钥加密的信息，可以用公钥对其解密，用于客户验证持有私钥一方发布的数据或文件是完整准确的，接收者由此可知这条信息确实来自于拥有私钥的某人，这被称作数字签名，公钥的形式就是数字证书digital signature。例如，从网上下载的安装程序，一般都带有程序制作者的数字签名，可以证明该程序的确是该作者（公司）发布的而不是第三方伪造的且未被篡改过（身份认证/验证）。
There are two main uses for public-key cryptography:
- Public-key encryption, in which a message is encrypted with a recipient's public key. The message cannot be decrypted by anyone who does not possess the matching private key, who is thus presumed to be the owner of that key and the person associated with the public key. This is used in an attempt to ensure confidentiality.
- Digital signatures, in which a message is signed with the sender's private key and can be verified by anyone who has access to the sender's public key. This verification proves that the sender had access to the private key, and therefore is likely to be the person associated with the public key. This also ensures that the message has not been tampered, as any manipulation of the message will result in changes to the encoded message digest, which otherwise remains unchanged between the sender and receiver.
A central problem with the use of public-key cryptography is confidence/proof that a particular public key is authentic, in that it is correct and belongs to the person or entity claimed, and has not been tampered with or replaced by a malicious third party. The usual approach to this problem is to use a public-key infrastructure (PKI), in which one or more third parties – known as certificate authorities – certify ownership of key pairs.