During the last decade a new approach for secure communication, based on chaotic dynamics attracted the attention of the scientific community. In this chapter we give an overview and describe the research that was done at the Institute for Nonlinear Science (INLS) on this topic. We begin this chapter with a brief introduction to chaos-based encryption schemes. We then describe a new method for public key encryption that we have developed which is based on distributed chaotic dynamics. Next, we lay out a quantitative cryptanalysis approach for symmetric key encryption schemes that are based on active/passive decomposition of chaotic dynamics. We end this chapter with a summary and suggestions for future research.