Final answer:
One of the earliest encryption standards designed by IBM in the 1970s and adopted as a federal standard for encrypting and securing government data was the Data Encryption Standard (DES). DES was later replaced by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
Step-by-step explanation:
One of the earliest encryption standards designed by IBM in the 1970s and adopted as a federal standard for encrypting and securing government data was the Data Encryption Standard (DES). DES was developed by IBM in partnership with the National Bureau of Standards, which is now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It was first published as a federal standard in 1977.
DES used a symmetric key algorithm, meaning the same key was used for both encryption and decryption. It used a 56-bit key and operated on 64-bit blocks of data. However, due to advances in computing power, DES became vulnerable to brute force attacks, and its effectiveness diminished over time.
In the late 1990s, DES was replaced by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which offered increased security and efficiency. AES became the new federal standard for encryption and is widely used today.