Security & PrivacyAES-256 Encryption Explained: How It Works and What It Actually Protects (2026)
AES-256 is the 256-bit version of the Advanced Encryption Standard — a symmetric block cipher that NIST standardized in 2001 (FIPS 197) and the NSA approved for protecting top-secret data. It encrypts 128-bit blocks using a 256-bit key across 14 rounds of substitution-permutation operations. In 2026
