What is the term for ordinary readable text before it is encrypted?

What is the term for ordinary readable text before it is encrypted?

• A. Plaintext
• B. Ciphertext
• C. Hash
• D. Token

Answer: (A)

The term for ordinary readable text before encryption is plaintext. It represents the original message in its readable form before any cryptographic transformation. Encryption takes that plaintext and converts it into ciphertext—the scrambled, unreadable output used to protect the data in transit or storage. The other terms don’t fit this stage: a hash is a fixed-length digest used for integrity checks and is not reversible, and a token is data used for authentication or session management, not the pre-encryption content. So plaintext best describes the message before encryption.

The term for ordinary readable text before encryption is plaintext. It represents the original message in its readable form before any cryptographic transformation. Encryption takes that plaintext and converts it into ciphertext—the scrambled, unreadable output used to protect the data in transit or storage. The other terms don’t fit this stage: a hash is a fixed-length digest used for integrity checks and is not reversible, and a token is data used for authentication or session management, not the pre-encryption content. So plaintext best describes the message before encryption.