Advanced Encryption Standard

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a widely used symmetric-key encryption algorithm. It was selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the standard for encryption of electronic data in 2001. AES is used in a variety of applications, including file and disk encryption, database encryption, and secure communication protocols.

AES operates on blocks of data, each of which is 128 bits long. The key length can be 128, 192, or 256 bits. The algorithm uses a substitution-permutation network, which consists of several rounds of operations that include substitution, permutation, and mixing of the input data and the key.

The strength of AES lies in its key length and the number of rounds of operations. AES-128 is considered secure for most applications, while AES-192 and AES-256 provide extra security against brute-force attacks.

AES has become the de facto standard for encryption, and it is supported by many software and hardware platforms. It is widely used in security protocols such as TLS/SSL, SSH, and IPsec, and it is also used in disk encryption software such as BitLocker and TrueCrypt.