DES

DES (Data Encryption Standard) was developed by agencies in the United States government in the 1970s. It was established to provide a standard means of securing sensitive unclassified and commercial data. The first draft of this type of algorithm was created by IBM, a protocol called Lucifer. DES surpassed Lucifer and became the official data security standard in the 1976. DES uses a 56-bit key, a size quite vulnerable to brute force hacking methods used in modern technology. Cryptographers developed triple DES to combat this issue. This variant provides additional security by performing the core of the DES algorithm three consecutive times, an implementation that makes it less susceptible to brute force. Triple DES is estimated to be up to 56 more times difficult to crack opposed to the basic version. Though DES is still used, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) has been adopted by the United States government as the new standard in digital security.