How to generate a random symmetric encryption key in Python

Random symmetric encryption keys are commonly used in various cryptographic algorithms and protocols for secure communication and data protection. The following are just a few of examples of where they are used:

• Database encryption
• Secure communication
• Password storage

Code example

To generate a random symmetric encryption key, a coding example in Python is given below:

Code explanation

• Line 1: We import the secrets module, which is utilized to generate random numbers with a high level of cryptographic strength.
• Line 2: We import ascii_letters from the string library, which contains a constant string with both lowercase and uppercase letters, i.e., “a” to “z” and “A” to “Z.”
• Line 3 We import digits from the string library, which contains a constant string with digits from “0” to “9.”
• Line 5: We declare the function named generate_random_symmetric_key.
• Line 6: We concatenate the ascii_letters and digits string.
• Line 7: We generate a random string containing 10 characters by choosing characters randomly from alphabets_digits using secrets.choice(). The resulting string is stored in encrypted_key variable.
• Line 8: We return the encrypted_key variable.
• Line 10: We print the returned value.