Cryptography is the science of securing information through encryption (transforming plain text into cipher text) and decryption (the reverse process). It can be divided into symmetric key cryptography, which uses the same key for both operations, and asymmetric key cryptography, which utilizes a pair of keys for enhanced security. Notable encryption standards include DES, which is older and less secure with a 56-bit key, and AES, which is more modern and flexible with key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits.