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3DES (Triple DES)

Triple Data Encryption Standard applies DES encryption three times in EDE mode. Supports both EDE2 (112-bit effective security) and EDE3 (168-bit key) modes. Deprecated by NIST in 2019.

Properties

Property	Value
Category	Block Ciphers
Sub-category	Block Cipher
Security status	❌ Broken
Complexity	Intermediate
Inventor	IBM (based on DES)
Year	1978
Origin	🇺🇸 United States
Source	algorithms/block/3des.js

Parameters

Parameter	Supported values
Key sizes	16 bytes (128 bits) to 24 bytes (192 bits) in steps of 8 bytes
Block sizes	8 bytes (64 bits)

Security

Status: ❌ Broken

Known vulnerabilities

Issue	Description	Mitigation
Meet-in-the-middle attack	Effective security reduced to 112 bits instead of theoretical 168 bits	Use AES-128 or higher for new applications
Small block size	64-bit block size vulnerable to birthday attacks	Avoid encrypting large amounts of data with single key

Documentation

• NIST SP 800-67 Rev 2 - Triple DES Guidelines
• FIPS 46-3 - Data Encryption Standard
• Wikipedia - Triple DES

References

• OpenSSL 3DES Implementation
• NIST CAVP 3DES Test Vectors
• Crypto++ 3DES Implementation
• libgcrypt 3DES Implementation
• Bouncy Castle 3DES Implementation
• Microsoft .NET 3DES Implementation

Test vectors

8 vectors ship with this algorithm and run in the test suite. Byte values are hexadecimal.

Vector 1 — DarkCrypt DES-EDE vector 1/zero

Field	Value
key	000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
input	0000000000000000
expected	8ca64de9c1b123a7

Vector 2 — DarkCrypt DES-EDE vector 2/incr

Field	Value
key	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f1011121314151617
input	0001020304050607
expected	58ed248f77f6b19e

Vector 3 — DarkCrypt DES-EDE vector 3/incr2

Field	Value
key	0102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f101112131415161718
input	1011121314151617
expected	bcbdf997a68ca618

Vector 4 — 3DES EDE2 mode - educational test vector

Field	Value
key	0123456789abcdef23456789abcdef01
input	0123456789abcdef
expected	a6bb373e196b375e

Vector 5 — 3DES EDE3 mode - educational test vector

Field	Value
key	0123456789abcdef23456789abcdef01456789abcdef0123
input	0123456789abcdef
expected	f2afd84ee809e2b5

Vector 6 — 3DES EDE2 mode - all zeros plaintext

Field	Value
key	01010101010101010101010101010101
input	0000000000000000
expected	8ca64de9c1b123a7

Vector 7 — 3DES EDE2 mode - FIPS 46-3 test vector

Field	Value
KeySize	16
key	0123456789abcdef23456789abcdef01
input	0123456789abcdef
expected	a6bb373e196b375e

Vector 8 — 3DES EDE3 mode - three distinct keys

Field	Value
KeySize	24
key	0123456789abcdef23456789abcdef01456789abcdef0123
input	0123456789abcdef
expected	f2afd84ee809e2b5

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