Cryptography plays a crucial role in many aspects of today's world, from internet banking and e-commerce to e-mail and web-based business processes. Understanding the principles on which it is based is an important topic that requires a knowledge of both computational complexity and a range of topics in pure mathematics. This book provides that knowledge, combining an informal style with rigorous proofs of the key results to give an accessible introduction. It comes with plenty of examples and exercises (many with hints and solutions), and is based on a highly successful course developed and taught over many years to undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics and computer science.