A user of RSA creates and then publishes a public key based on two large prime numbers, along with an auxiliary value. The prime numbers must be kept secret. Anyone can use the public key to encrypt a message, but with currently published methods, and if the public key is large enough, only someone with knowledge of the prime numbers can decode the message feasibly.[2] Breaking RSA encryption is known as the RSA problem. Whether it is as difficult as the factoring problem remains an open question.
