Internet and networks applications are growing very fast,
so the needs to protect such applications are increased.
Encryption algorithms play a main role in information
security systems. On the other side, those algorithms consume
a significant amount of computing resources such as
CPU time, memory, and battery power. This paper provides
evaluation of six of the most common encryption
algorithms namely: AES (Rijndael), DES, 3DES, RC2,
Blowfish, and RC6. A comparison has been conducted
for those encryption algorithms at different settings for
each algorithm such as different sizes of data blocks, different
data types, battery power consumption, different
key size and finally encryption/decryption speed. Experimental
results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness
of each algorithm.
Keywords: 3DES, AES, blowfish, computer security,
DES, encryption techniques, RC2, RC6