Also known by its original name R?ndael, Advanced Encryption Standard was developed by two Belgian cryptographers Vincent R?men and Joan Daemen. It is based on a design principle known as substitution - permutation network, made popular in 2001. Development started in 1997 when the need for alternate to Digital Encryption Standard (DES) was felt as DES was beginning to become vulnerable to brute force attacks.

It is used in Software and Hardware globally to protect sensitive data in areas of government computer security, cybersecurity and electronic data protection. 3 different versions are available AES 128, AES 192 and AES 256.

128, 192 and 256 represent the key length that is used to encrypt and decrypt information. AES 128 uses 128 bit key length.