The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created a procedure to select a symmetric-key encryption algorithm to protect sensitive federal information. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a standard used by the U.S. government. It was announced by NIST after 5 years of a standardization process, in which many designs were evaluated before the solution was selected.
Based on your understanding of how AES was chosen, what is your opinion of the criteria used?
Why do you think these criteria were important?
What do you think about the effectiveness and ease of use of AES?
Sample Answer
I think the criteria used to select AES were sound and important. They included:
- Security: The algorithm must be secure against all known attacks.
- Efficiency: The algorithm must be efficient in terms of both time and space.
- Implementability: The algorithm must be easy to implement in hardware and software.
- Expandability: The algorithm must be expandable to support larger key sizes and block sizes.
- Robustness: The algorithm must be robust against implementation errors.
These criteria were important because they ensured that AES would be a secure, efficient, and easy-to-use encryption algorithm that could be used to protect sensitive federal information.
AES has been shown to be very effective in protecting sensitive information. It has been subjected to extensive cryptanalysis and no significant weaknesses have been found. AES is also very efficient, both in terms of time and space. This makes it suitable for a wide variety of applications, from protecting data on smartphones to encrypting large amounts of data on servers.