cleartext

Definitions

Data or information that is transmitted or stored without encryption, making it readable by anyone who intercepts it.

Plaintext that has not been processed by a cryptographic algorithm.

Examples

The security protocol was updated to ensure that no sensitive passwords are ever transmitted in cleartext.

Because the configuration file was stored in cleartext, any user on the system could read the database credentials.

Synonyms

plain text unencrypted data readable text unencoded information

Antonyms

ciphertext encrypted data encoded text scrambled information