What is Data Encryption Standard (DES)?
SearchSecurity, Friday, May 3rd, 2024
Data Encryption Standard (DES) is an outdated symmetric key method of data encryption. It was adopted in 1977 for government agencies to protect sensitive data and was officially retired in 2005.
IBM researchers originally designed the standard in the early 1970s. It was then adopted by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards -- now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST -- as an official Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) in 1977 for the encryption of commercial and sensitive yet unclassified government computer data.
DES was the first encryption algorithm the U.S. government approved for public disclosure. This move ensured it was quickly adopted by industries, such as financial services, that needed strong encryption. Because of its simplicity, DES was also used in a variety of embedded systems,