Cryptography primitives are nothing but the tools and techniques in Cryptography that can be selectively used to provide a set of desired security services −
- Encryption
- Hash functions
- Message Authentication codes (MAC)
- Digital Signatures
The following table shows the primitives that can achieve a particular security service on their own.

Note − Cryptographic primitives are intricately related and they are often combined to achieve a set of desired security services from a cryptosystem.