Final answer:
Modern CPUs feature built-in AES instructions to enhance performance and security in encryption processes, allowing faster, more efficient operations and improved system performance while also protecting against side-channel attacks.
Step-by-step explanation:
Modern CPUs from companies like Intel and AMD have built-in Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) instructions to enhance the performance and security of encryption processes. Encryption is a vital aspect of data protection, allowing for secure transmission and storage of sensitive information. By integrating AES instructions directly onto the CPU, these modern processors themselves can efficiently handle encryption and decryption operations much faster than if the tasks were offloaded to software algorithms alone. This hardware acceleration dramatically reduces the CPU load and improves overall system performance, particularly in environments where encryption is used extensively, such as in secure web browsing, cloud computing, and protecting personal data. Moreover, offloading the encryption workload to the CPU helps to protect against certain types of side-channel attacks, which can exploit software-based encryption vulnerabilities.