A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CRYPTOGRAPHIC ALGORITHM (AES & DES) IN DATA SECURITY

The increasing reliance on digital platforms for storing and transmitting sensitive information has heightened the importance of robust cryptographic methods. This study presents a comparative analysis of two widely used symmetric key encryption algorithms: Data Encryption Standard (DES) and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). While previous research has often relied on theoretical models, this study adopts a quantitative experimental design to evaluate both algorithms under controlled conditions. Using Python and the PyCryptodome library, the algorithms were implemented and tested on a CSV dataset containing 50 personal records. Performance was assessed through encryption and decryption time, CPU and memory utilization, and security robustness. The findings reveal that AES significantly outperforms DES in both encryption and decryption speed, completing tasks in less than half the time taken by DES. Furthermore, AES demonstrated superior security, supported by its longer key length (128 bits compared to DES’s 56 bits) and larger block size. While DES consumed slightly less memory, this advantage was negligible compared to its vulnerabilities to brute force and cryptanalytic attacks. Based on these results, AES is recommended as the preferred choice for securing modern digital systems, offering a balance of speed, efficiency, and resilience against attacks. This research contributes empirical evidence to the discourse on cryptographic performance, bridging the gap between theory and practice. It emphasizes the deprecation of DES in contemporary applications and highlights AES as a sustainable standard for protecting sensitive data. Future work should expand this analysis to include larger datasets, diverse encryption algorithms, and cloud-based or real-time environments to evaluate scalability and adaptability.