AES Encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric encryption algorithm used to secure sensitive data by converting plain text into a cipher text. It is a widely used encryption algorithm and is considered one of the most secure encryption algorithms available.
AES uses a substitution-permutation network, which involves substituting each input byte with another byte based on a secret key and then permuting the bytes to produce the output cipher text. The algorithm is designed to be resistant to various types of attacks, including linear and differential cryptanalysis.
AES operates on blocks of data, with the block size being either 128, 192, or 256 bits. The algorithm uses a secret key, which can be either 128, 192, or 256 bits in length, to encrypt and decrypt the data.
The AES encryption process involves several rounds of substitutions and permutations. In each round, a round key is generated from the secret key, and the input data block is transformed using the round key. The number of rounds varies depending on the key size: 10 rounds for a 128-bit key, 12 rounds for a 192-bit key, and 14 rounds for a 256-bit key.