Advanced Encryption Standard Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
In cryptography, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known as Rijndael, is a block cipher adopted as an encryption standard by the US government, and is expected to be used worldwide and analysed extensively, as was the case with its predecessor, the Data Encryption Standard (DES). It was adopted by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as US FIPS PUB 197 in November 2001 after a 5-year standardisation process (see Advanced Encryption Standard process for more details).
The cipher was developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen, and submitted to the AES selection process under the name "Rijndael", a portmanteau comprised of the names of the inventors. Rijndael can be pronounced "Rhine dahl", a long "i" and a silent "e" ( IPA: [ɹaindal] ). In the sound file linked below, it is pronounced [rʰaindau].
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2 Description of the cipher 3 Security 4 See also 5 External links 6 References |
Development
Rijndael was a refinement of an earlier design by Daemen and Rijmen, Square; Square was a development from Shark.
Unlike its predecessor DES, Rijndael is a substitution-permutation network, not a Feistel network. AES is fast in both software and hardware, is relatively easy to implement, and requires little memory. As a new encryption standard, it is currently being deployed on a large scale.
Description of the cipher
Strictly speaking, AES is not precisely Rijndael (although in practice they are used interchangeably) as Rijndael supports a larger range of block and key sizes; AES has a fixed block size of 128 bits and a key size of 128, 192 or 256 bits, whereas Rijndael can be specified with key and block sizes in any multiple of 32 bits, with a minimum of 128 bits and a maximum of 256 bits.
AES operates on a 4×4 array of bytes, termed the state (versions of Rijndael with a larger block size have additional columns in the state). For encryption, each round of AES (except the last round) consists of four stages:
- SubBytes — a non-linear substitution step where each byte is replaced with another according to a lookup table.
- ShiftRows — a transposition step where each row of the state is shifted cyclically a certain number of steps.
- MixColumns — a mixing operation which operates on the columns of the state, combining the four bytes in each column using a linear transformation.
- AddRoundKey — each byte of the state is combined with the round key; each round key is derived from the cipher key using a key schedule.
The most common way to attack block ciphers is to try various attacks on versions of the cipher with a reduced number of rounds. AES has 10 rounds for 128-bit keys, 12 rounds for 192-bit keys, and 14 rounds for 256-bit keys. As of 2004, the best known attacks are on 7 rounds for 128-bit keys, 8 rounds for 192-bit keys, and 9 rounds for 256-bit keys (Ferguson et al, 2000).
Some cryptographers worry about the security of AES. They feel that the margin between the number of rounds specified in the cipher and the best known attacks is too small for comfort. The risk is that some way to improve these attacks might be found and that, if so, the cipher could be broken. In this meaning, a cryptographic "break" is anything faster than an exhaustive search, so an attack against 128-bit key AES requiring 'only' 2120 operations would be considered a break even though it would be, now, quite infeasible. In practical application, any break of AES which is only this 'good' would be irrelevant. For the moment, such concerns can be ignored.
Another concern is the mathematical structure of AES. Unlike most other block ciphers, AES has a very neat mathematical description [1], [1]. This has not yet led to any attacks, but some researchers are worried that future attacks may find a way to exploit this structure.
In 2002, a theoretical attack, termed the "XSL attack", was announced by Nicolas Courtois and Josef Pieprzyk, showing a potential weakness in the AES algorithm. It seems that the attack, if the mathematics is correct, is not currently practical as it would have a prohibitively high "work factor". There have been claims of considerable work factor improvement, however, so the attack technique might become practical in the future. On the other hand, several cryptography experts have found problems in the underlying mathematics of the proposed attack, suggesting that the authors have made a mistake in their estimates. Whether this line of attack can be made to work against AES remains an open question. For the moment, as far as is publicly known, the XSL attack against AES is speculative; it is unlikely that anyone could carry out the current attack in practice.
This is an Article on Advanced Encryption Standard. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Advanced Encryption Standard SubBytes
In the SubBytes step, each byte in the array is updated using an 8-bit S-box. This operation provides the non-linearity in the cipher. The S-box used is derived from the inverse function over GF(28), known to have good non-linearity properties. To avoid attacks based on simple algebraic properties, the S-box is constructed by combining the inverse function with an invertible affine transformation. The S-box is also chosen to avoid any fixed points (and so is a derangement), and also any opposite fixed points.ShiftRows
The ShiftRows step operates on the rows of the state; it cyclically shifts the bytes in each row by a certain offset. For AES, the first row is left unchanged. Each byte of the the second row is shifted one to the left. Similarly, the third and fourth rows are shifted by offsets of two and three respectively. In this way, each column of the output state of the ShiftRows step is composed of bytes from each column of the input state. (Rijndael variants with a larger block size have slightly different offsets).MixColumns
In the MixColumns step, the four bytes of each column of the state are combined using an invertible linear transformation. Together with ShiftRows, MixColumns provides diffusion in the cipher. Each column is treated as a polynomial over GF(28) and is then multiplied modulo with a fixed polynomial .AddRoundKey
In the AddRoundKey step, the subkey is combined with the state. For each round, a subkey is derived from the main key using the key schedule; each subkey is the same size as the state. The subkey is added by combining each byte of the state with the corresponding byte of the subkey using bitwise XOR.Security
As of 2004, no successful attacks against AES have been recognised. The National Security Agency (NSA) reviewed all the AES finalists, including Rijndael, and stated that all of them were secure enough for US Government non-classified data. In June 2003, the US Government announced that AES may be used for classified information:
This marks the first time that the public has had access to a cipher approved by NSA for TOP SECRET information.See also
External links
References