Report on the development of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

TLDR

In 1997 NIST began a process to select a symmetric‑key encryption algorithm for protecting federal information, and in 1998 announced 15 candidates and solicited community analysis. The analysis examined each candidate’s security and efficiency characteristics. NIST shortlisted MARS, RC, Rijndael, Serpent, and Twofish, and ultimately selected Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard after further public analysis.

Abstract

In 1997, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a process to select a symmetric-key encryption algorithm to be used to protect sensitive (unclassified) Federal information in furtherance of NIST's statutory responsibilities. In 1998, NIST announced the acceptance of 15 candidate algorithms and requested the assistance of the cryptographic research community in analyzing the candidates. This analysis included an initial examination of the security and efficiency characteristics for each algorithm. NIST reviewed the results of this preliminary research and selected MARS, RC™, Rijndael, Serpent and Twofish as finalists. Having reviewed further public analysis of the finalists, NIST has decided to propose Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The research results and rationale for this selection are documented in this report.