Cryptographic References

Understand the security, mechanisms, and parameters of the ciphers featured in SecureBox.

Disclaimer: SecureBox is an educational showcase platform. Do not use this application or its interfaces for encrypting sensitive, production-grade enterprise data. Keys and files processed on the website live only for the duration of the request or active session.

AES-256 Very High

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a symmetric block cipher standardized by NIST in 2001. It is the global standard for secure data transit and storage.

Key Size: 256 bits
Block Size: 128 bits
Operation Mode: CBC (Cipher Block Chaining)
Padding Scheme: PKCS#7
DES Low (Insecure)

The Data Encryption Standard (DES) is an older symmetric block cipher established in 1977. Its key space is small enough to be brute-forced in hours, making it insecure for modern use.

Key Size: 56 bits (effective)
Block Size: 64 bits
Operation Mode: CBC (Cipher Block Chaining)
Padding Scheme: PKCS#7
RSA-2048 High

Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) is an asymmetric cryptosystem based on the mathematical difficulty of factoring large prime integers. It uses key pairs for encryption and decryption.

Key Size: 2048 bits
Cipher Type: Asymmetric
Padding Scheme: PKCS#1 OAEP
Max Plaintext: ~190 bytes (for 2048-bit)
Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Encryption
Characteristic Symmetric Encryption (e.g. AES, DES) Asymmetric Encryption (e.g. RSA)
Key Setup Uses a single, shared secret key for both encryption and decryption. Uses a pair of keys: a public key to encrypt and a private key to decrypt.
Performance Highly optimized, fast, and suitable for bulk data (files, streams, images). Computationally intensive, slow, and restricted to tiny block lengths.
Distribution Difficult. The secret key must be shared securely beforehand. Simple. Public key can be freely shared, only private key must remain hidden.
Typical Use Cases Full Disk Encryption, SSL/TLS data stream transit, file backups. Digital Signatures, initial SSL/TLS handshakes, secure symmetric key exchange.