A Compatible Hexadecimal Encryption-Booster Algorithm for Augmenting Security in the Advanced Encryption Standard

Among the most prominent encryption algorithms, Advanced Encryption Standard ranks first. Even so, many familiar characters can be seen when an AES encrypted file is opened. As of today, there have been very few contributions to research on suppressing known characters in AES encrypted files. It is possible to identify encrypted files not only by their name and content, but also by their size. As a result, hackers can identify files at source and target locations by comparing their sizes. In this paper, a methodology is presented to address these two research gaps. As a result of the proposed algorithm, almost all characters are transformed into an unintelligible format not only for humans, but also for computer interpreters. As an additional benefit, the proposed method makes the encrypted file appear smaller and conceals its actual size. The proposed Encryption Booster algorithm is also easily integrated with Advanced Encryption Standard.