In 1997, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposed a new specification for encryption of electronic data. AES began as an algorithm designed by two Belgian cryptologists, Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen. The symmetric algorithm uses the same key for both encrypting and decrypting data. NIST selected three different key lengths: 128 (AES-128), 192 (AES-192), and 256 bits (AES-256). Viking Technology SEDs use AES-256 encryption.