Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is a public key encryption technique that uses elliptic curves to create cryptographic keys. ECC is considered one of the most powerful types of cryptography in use today. 

ECC is based on the assumption that it is difficult to find the discrete logarithm of a random number. ECC uses modular arithmetic and group theory to deal with elliptic curves over finite fields. A finite field is a set of a certain number of numbers, which also includes infinity.