What is a common method used to secure sensitive data during transmission?

Encryption is a widely recognized and essential method for securing sensitive data during transmission. It works by converting the information into a code, making it unreadable to anyone who does not have the decryption key. When data is transmitted over networks, whether through email, file transfer, or web applications, it is vulnerable to interception by unauthorized users. By encrypting the data, even if someone intercepts it, they would not be able to understand or make use of the information without the relevant decryption key.

This method is particularly important for protecting sensitive information like personal data, financial details, and confidential business information, as it ensures that the data remains confidential and secure while moving across potentially insecure channels, such as the internet.

The other options, while important in their own right, serve different purposes. Firewalls help monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic but do not secure the content of data being transmitted. Antivirus software is designed to detect and remove malicious software, protecting overall system integrity but does not directly address encryption or data transmission security. VPNs, while they encrypt data between the user and the VPN server, primarily serve to create a secure tunnel for data and may not encrypt the actual data being sent, depending on the protocols used. Hence, encryption remains