With an increasing reliance on online communications and transactions, the need for effective cryptographic algorithms to ensure security and reliability has never been more important, especially with the rise of big data. This paper provides a survey of different cryptographic algorithms that have been used in the past and are being used today to provide such security. The different cryptographic algorithms can be divided into three categories–symmetric key algorithms, asymmetric key algorithms and hash functions. The objective of the paper is to provide an overview of these different types of cryptographic algorithms and to serve as a basic introduction to the field. Another goal is to discuss some of the cryptographic challenges that are faced in the domain of big data.