Every time you buy something, you're using these underlying basic principles
En 1997, dos ingenieros belgas construyeron una cerradura matemática tan sólida que, un cuarto de siglo después, nadie ha logrado forzarla. Joan Daemen y Vincent Rijmen, ahora galardonados con el Premio Fronteras del Conocimiento de la Fundación BBVA, crearon Rijndael, el algoritmo que cifra en silencio cada transacción bancaria, cada mensaje privado y cada archivo en la nube que sostiene la vida digital contemporánea. Su logro no es solo técnico: es una demostración de que la transparencia y el rigor matemático pueden convertirse en la infraestructura invisible de la confianza humana.
- Durante 25 años, los criptógrafos más brillantes del mundo han intentado romper Rijndael sin éxito, lo que convierte su resistencia en un fenómeno científico sin precedentes en la historia del cifrado moderno.
- El algoritmo protege en este momento miles de millones de dispositivos, desde historiales médicos hasta pagos con tarjeta, operando de forma tan silenciosa que la mayoría de las personas ignoran por completo su existencia.
- La decisión de publicar Rijndael como código abierto fue un acto de confianza radical que permitió a toda la comunidad criptográfica global examinarlo, enseñarlo y verificarlo, acelerando su adopción como estándar internacional.
- Expertos del sector advierten que, lejos de quedar obsoleto, Rijndael seguirá siendo la columna vertebral de la seguridad digital en un mundo de dispositivos y servicios que ni siquiera existían cuando fue diseñado.
Joan Daemen y Vincent Rijmen, dos ingenieros belgas, han recibido el Premio Fronteras del Conocimiento de la Fundación BBVA por crear Rijndael, un algoritmo de cifrado que diseñaron en 1997 y que se convirtió en estándar global de protección de datos a principios de los años 2000. Su trabajo, invisible para la mayoría, es el fundamento silencioso de casi toda la vida digital: cada consulta bancaria, cada mensaje, cada compra en línea y cada archivo almacenado en la nube pasa por él.
Lo que distingue a Rijndael no es solo su omnipresencia, sino su durabilidad. Durante un cuarto de siglo, los criptógrafos más reputados del mundo han intentado encontrar una grieta en su estructura matemática, motivados por el enorme prestigio que supondría lograrlo. Ninguno lo ha conseguido. Todo indica que tampoco lo harán en un futuro próximo, lo que convierte al algoritmo en una rareza: una tecnología de 1997 que sigue protegiendo sistemas que no existían cuando fue concebida.
El jurado del premio subrayó una decisión que resultó determinante: Daemen y Rijmen publicaron Rijndael como código abierto. Esa apuesta por la transparencia permitió que la comunidad criptográfica internacional lo analizara, lo enseñara y lo validara colectivamente, construyendo una confianza que ninguna caja negra habría podido generar. Hoy, todos los cursos de ciberseguridad del mundo lo estudian y todos los expertos pueden inspeccionar su funcionamiento interno.
Más allá de su seguridad, el algoritmo destaca por su velocidad y flexibilidad: admite distintas longitudes de clave, lo que le permite adaptarse a diferentes niveles de exigencia según la aplicación. Esa versatilidad explica por qué sigue siendo relevante en un ecosistema digital en expansión constante. El galardón reconoce, en definitiva, cómo una investigación matemática profunda puede traducirse en una herramienta que remodela la civilización, garantizando que miles de millones de personas puedan vivir con una privacidad y una seguridad que casi nunca perciben, pero de las que dependen en cada momento.
Two Belgian engineers have won one of Europe's most prestigious science prizes for work that, while largely invisible to the public, underpins nearly every digital transaction and private communication happening right now. Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen created an encryption algorithm called Rijndael in 1997—a name built from their surnames—that became the global standard for protecting data in 2001 in the United States and internationally by 2005. The BBVA Foundation's Frontiers of Knowledge Prize, now in its eighteenth year, recognizes them for designing the cryptographic technologies that sustain the modern digital age.
The reach of their work is staggering in its ordinariness. When you check your bank balance, send a message, visit a website, buy something online, or store files in the cloud, you are using Rijndael. The algorithm secures wifi connections, protects medical records, encrypts credit card transactions, and guards the data on your phone. For a quarter century, it has become so woven into the infrastructure of daily life that most people have no idea it exists. Yet without it, the digital world as we know it would not function. There would be no reliable digital identity, no trustworthy cloud services, no connected devices—no modern society as we have come to understand it.
What makes this achievement worthy of major recognition is not just its ubiquity but its durability. Rijndael has withstood twenty-five years of sustained attack from some of the world's most accomplished cryptographers. In the field of encryption, breaking an established standard is how researchers make their names. The incentive to find a flaw in Rijndael is enormous. Yet despite decades of scrutiny, no one has succeeded in substantially weakening it. All evidence suggests that no one will in the foreseeable future either. The algorithm's resistance to attack is a testament to the mathematical rigor with which Daemen and Rijmen built it.
The jury emphasized a crucial decision the two engineers made early on: they released Rijndael as open-source code. This choice allowed the global cryptographic community to examine it, test it, teach it, and verify its security through transparency rather than obscurity. Every cybersecurity course in the world now covers Rijndael. Every expert can inspect its inner workings. This openness accelerated standardization and built confidence in the algorithm's integrity. It is a model of how fundamental research can translate into world-changing technology that touches billions of lives.
Ron Ho, a vice president of research and development at Lattice Semiconductor and secretary of the prize jury, noted that the global persistence of Rijndael proves the scientific rigor, openness, and transparency embedded in the algorithm itself. "Every time you visit a website, every time you buy something, every time you go to the doctor, you're using these underlying basic principles," he said. Joos Vandewalle, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven and a cryptography expert, stressed that the algorithm has resisted attacks from famous researchers for a quarter century. "If you want to make a name for yourself in cryptography, you try to break the advanced encryption standards. But so far no one has succeeded, and everything suggests they won't in the near future either."
Javier López, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Málaga, highlighted another dimension of Rijndael's success: beyond being secure, it is fast and remarkably flexible. The algorithm allows for different key lengths, which means it can be adapted to various levels of security depending on the application. This versatility has allowed it to remain relevant across an expanding landscape of digital devices and services. A technology designed in 1997 continues to protect systems that did not even exist when it was created.
The prize recognizes Daemen and Rijmen for demonstrating how deep mathematical and algorithmic research into the foundations of cryptography can produce practical tools that reshape civilization. Cryptography is now the backbone of trust in the digital world, guaranteeing the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of information flowing through everything from personal messages to global financial systems. Without it, there is no modern society. With it—thanks to two engineers and one elegant algorithm—billions of people can conduct their lives with a baseline of privacy and security they rarely think about and almost never see.
Notable Quotes
Every time you visit a website, every time you buy something, every time you go to the doctor, you're using these underlying basic principles.— Ron Ho, vice president of research and development at Lattice Semiconductor
If you want to make a name for yourself in cryptography, you try to break the advanced encryption standards. But so far no one has succeeded, and everything suggests they won't in the near future either.— Joos Vandewalle, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does an algorithm from 1997 still matter in 2026? Shouldn't it be obsolete by now?
Because the mathematics underneath it was built to last. Daemen and Rijmen didn't just solve the problem of their time—they solved it so thoroughly that no one has found a way around it in twenty-five years. That's not luck. That's rigor.
But surely computing power has increased exponentially since then. Couldn't someone just brute-force their way through it now?
That's the elegant part. The algorithm allows for different key lengths. As computers got faster, the keys got longer. It scaled with the threat. It's like they built a lock that gets stronger as the tools to break it improve.
Why did they release it as open source? Wouldn't keeping it secret have made it more secure?
The opposite. By opening it up, they let thousands of experts attack it from every angle. If there were a flaw, someone would have found it by now. Secrecy breeds false confidence. Transparency breeds actual security.
So what happens if someone finally does break it?
The cryptographic community is already thinking about what comes next. But Rijndael's real legacy isn't that it's unbreakable forever—it's that it proved a method works. It showed how to build something that lasts, how to let others verify it, and how to make it matter to billions of people without them ever knowing your name.
Is that why they won the prize?
Partly. But mostly because they built something so fundamental that you can't separate it from modern life anymore. Your bank account, your medical records, your private messages—they all exist because of this algorithm. That's not a technical achievement. That's a civilizational one.