The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a widely used symmetric encryption algorithm. It is a symmetric-key algorithm, meaning the same key is used for both encryption and decryption. AES was selected by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001 as a replacement for the Data Encryption Standard (DES) due to its improved security and efficiency.
AES operates on fixed-size blocks of data and supports key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits. The algorithm consists of a series of transformations applied to the input data in multiple rounds, each round consisting of several sub-steps. These transformations include substitution, permutation, and mixing operations that are performed on the data and the secret key.
AES has been extensively analyzed and is considered secure against known cryptographic attacks when used properly with a strong key. It is widely adopted and used in various applications, including secure communication protocols, disk encryption, virtual private networks (VPNs), and secure file transfer. AES has become the de facto standard for symmetric encryption and is implemented in software and hardware by many organizations worldwide.
It is important to note that AES is a symmetric encryption algorithm, which means the same key is used for both encryption and decryption. If you're interested in public-key encryption algorithms, RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) are commonly used.
