The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the current specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). AES is a symmetric block cipher that can encrypt (encipher) and decrypt (decipher) information, converting data to an unintelligible form called ciphertext and back to its original form, plaintext. The AES algorithm is capable of using cryptographic keys of 128, 192, and 256 bits to encrypt and decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits. It was selected by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) to protect electronic data and is widely recognized and used for secure data encryption1.

References: The BCS Foundation Certificate in Information Security Management Principles outlines the importance of understanding various encryption algorithms, including AES, for protecting electronic data. The NIST publication on AES provides detailed information about the standard and its application1.