Definition
AES is the NIST-standardized symmetric block cipher (2001) used widely for HTTPS, disk encryption, and application crypto. Full AES-128 uses 10 rounds; researchers study reduced-round variants to measure security margins.
Key Points
- 2026-07: Mythos “Möbius Bridge” improves 7-round AES-128 meet-in-the-middle by 200–800× vs prior; full 10-round production AES unaffected (2026-07-30-anthropic-mythos-hawk-aes-cryptanalysis)
- matthew-green: incremental vs 2013 work; impractical resource requirements (2^89 ops, 2^105 chosen plaintexts)
Do not headline as "AI breaks AES" — production AES-128 remains intact.