Advanced Encryption Standard Enhancement with Output Feedback Block Mode Operation

There is a great research in the field of data security these days. Storing information digitally in the cloud and transferring it over the internet proposes risks of disclosure and unauthorized access; thus, users, organizations, and businesses are adapting new technology and methods to protect their data from breaches. In this paper, we introduce a method to provide higher security for data transferred over the internet, or information based in the cloud. The introduced method, for the most part, depends on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, which is currently the standard for secret key encryption. A standardized version of the algorithm was used by The Federal Information Processing Standard 197 called Rijndael for the AES. The AES algorithm processes data through a combination of exclusive-OR operations (XOR), octet substitution with an S-box, row and column rotations, and MixColumn operations. The fact that the algorithm could be easily implemented and run on a regular computer in a reasonable amount of time made it highly favorable and successful. In this paper, the proposed method provides a new dimension of security to the AES algorithm by securing the key itself such that even when the key is disclosed; the text cannot be deciphered. This is done by enciphering the key using Output Feedback Block Mode Operation. This introduces a new level of security to the key in a way, in which deciphering the data requires prior knowledge of the key and the algorithm used to encipher the key for the purpose of deciphering the transferred text.