Advantages of AES | disadvantages of AES
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of AES. It mentions AES advantages or benefits and AES disadvantages or drawbacks. It also describes AES basics.
What is AES?
Introduction:
• AES is the short form of Advanced Encryption Standard.
• It is FIPS approved cryptographic algorithm used to
protect electronic data.
• It is symmetric block cipher which can encrypt and decrypt information.
• Encryption part converts data into cipher text form while
decryption part converts cipher text into text form of data.
• AES algorithm used different keys 128/192/256 bits in order to encrypt and
decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits.
• AES is implemented in both hardware and software to protect
digital information in various forms data, voice, video etc. from attacks or
eavesdropping.
The figure-1 depicts two modes of AES algorithm viz. CTR (counter) mode and OFB (Output Feed Back) mode.
In CTR (counter) mode, the output of the Counter is the input for the Encryption core and an initialization vector is used to initialize the counter. Input data is encrypted by XOR'ing it with the output of the Encryption module. The data coming out after this operation is called cyphertext. Decryption reverses the encryption operation.
In OFB mode, the output of the Encryption operation is fed back to the input of the Encryption Core. An initialization vector is used for the first iteration. Input data is Encrypted by XOR'ing it with the output of the Encryption module.
| AES type | Key Length (Nk words) | Block Size (Nb words) | Number of rounds (Nr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| AES-128 | 4 | 4 | 10 |
| AES-192 | 6 | 4 | 12 |
| AES-256 | 8 | 4 | 14 |
The table above mentions three types of AES based on key lengths used
in the algorithm.
Also refer AES Basics and MATLAB Code >>.
Benefits or advantages of AES
Following are the benefits or advantages of AES:
➨As it is implemented in both hardware and software, it is most robust
security protocol.
➨It uses higher length key sizes such as 128, 192 and 256 bits for
encryption. Hence it makes AES algorithm more robust against hacking.
➨It is most common security protocol used for
wide variety of applications such as wireless communication,
financial transactions, e-business, encrypted data storage etc.
➨It is one of the most widely used commercial and open source solutions across the world.
➨No one can hack your personal information.
➨For 128 bit, about 2128 attempts are needed to break.
This makes it very difficult to hack it as a result it is very safe protocol.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of AES
Following are the disadvantages of AES:
➨It uses too simple algebraic structure.
➨Every block is always encrypted in the same way.
➨Hard to implement with software.
➨AES in counter mode is complex to implement in software taking both
performance and security into considerations.
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• Circuit Switching vs Packet switching • Packet Switching vs Message switching • What is an IP address • What is MAC Address • Basics of OSI and TCP-IP Layers • What is Hub • What is Switch • What is Bridge • What is Router • What is Gateway • Firewall basics • TCP-IP Packet format • ARP Protocol format
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