Cryptographic Algorithms

Symmetric Cryptographic Algorithms

DES (Data Encryption Standard) is perhaps the most widely used cryptographic algorithm. DES is based upon IBM’s Lucifer algorithm. The NBS (National Bureau of Standards) and the NSA (National Security Agency) adopted DES as a federal standard in 1977. DES is a symmetric cipher with an effective key length of 56 bits.

Triple-DES is a variant of DES which encrypts the plaintext with the DES algorithm three times.

IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) is a commercial symmetric cipher developed in 1990 which uses 128-bit keys.

Blowfish is a symmetric cipher with a variable key length from 32 to 448 bits.

A limited variant of Rijndael was selected by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) as the new AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm in 2001. Rijndael is a symmetric cipher with a variable key length.

Asymmetric Cryptographic Algorithms

The RSA algorithm was invented by Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in 1977. RSA is an asymmetric cipher with a variable key length.

Elgamal is an asymmetric cipher with a variable key length.

More Cryptographic Algorithms

Other cryptographic algorithms include MARS, RC6, and Twofish.