Encryption Questions

Quick summary

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a symmetric key cipher. This means the same secret key is used for both encryption and decryption, and both the sender and receiver of the data need a copy of the key. Symmetric keys are better suited to internal encryption. The advantage of symmetric systems like AES is their speed. Because a symmetric key algorithm requires less computational power than an asymmetric one, it’s faster and more efficient to run.

AES is also characterized as a block cipher. In this type of cipher, the information to be encrypted (known as plaintext) is divided into sections called blocks. The AES encryption algorithm encrypts and decrypts data in blocks of 128 bits (block size). It can do this using 128-bit, 192-bit, or 256-bit keys. AES using 128-bit keys is often referred to as AES-128, and so on.

AES is the successor of Data Encryption Standard (DES), which uses a block size of 64 bits and key size of 56 bits. Nowadays, AES is still considered secured if implemented properly.

Triple DES (3DES) – also known as Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA) – is a way of using DES encryption three times. But even Triple DES was proven ineffective against brute force attacks. AES was introduced in 2001 to replace 3DES.

Asymmetric cryptography (or “public key cryptography”) is a cryptographic system that uses keypairs (a private key and a public key). The public key is shared widely, while the private key must be kept
completely secret.