Randomness Testing of the Advanced Encryption Standard Finalist Candidates

Published

April 1, 2000

Author(s)

Juan Soto, Lawrence E. Bassham

Abstract

Mars, RC6, Rijndael, Serpent and Twofish were selected as finalists for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). To evaluate the finalists' suitability as random number generators, empirical statistical testing is commonly employed. Although it widely believed that these five algorithms are indeed random, randomness testing was conducted to show that there is empirical evidence supporting this belief. In this paper, NIST reports on the studies that were conducted on the finalists for the 192-bit key size and 256-bit key size. The results to date suggest that all five of the finalists appear to be random.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 6483

Report Number

6483

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.6483

Local Download

Keywords

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), random number generators, randomness, statistical tests

Citation

Soto, J. and Bassham, L. (2000), Randomness Testing of the Advanced Encryption Standard Finalist Candidates, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.6483, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=151216 (Accessed October 13, 2025)