Electronic data and message security are important for protecting financial transactions and company communications. Unauthorized network monitoring called packet sniffing is a major threat to data security, while message security programs protect a company's messaging infrastructure and personal employee messages related to its vision and mission. Forms of authentication and encryption are the basis of data and message security, with encryption mutating information into an unreadable format without a decryption key. Advantages of encryption include private keys being impossible to deduce from public keys, eliminating the need for senders and receivers to share secrets over public channels.