ChaCha20-Poly1305

ChaCha20-Poly1305 is a high-performance AEAD cipher combining a 256-bit stream cipher with a 128-bit authenticator for secure, hardware-independent encryption.

Standardized in RFC 8439, this Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) construction pairs the ChaCha20 stream cipher with the Poly1305 message authentication code. It excels on mobile and embedded hardware lacking dedicated AES instructions: achieving high throughput via simple 32-bit integer operations like addition, rotation, and XOR. The design provides native resistance to cache-timing attacks and is a mandatory component of TLS 1.3, securing modern traffic for WireGuard, SSH, and OpenSSL. By utilizing a 96-bit nonce and a 256-bit key, it ensures data integrity and confidentiality without the performance penalties often seen in software-only block cipher implementations.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8439