GOST Algorithm

The GOST block cipher, also called Magma, defined in the standard GOST 28147-89, is a Soviet and Russian government standard symmetric-key block cipher with a 64-bit block size. The original 1989 standard gave the cipher no name, but its most recent revision, GOST R 34.12-2015, specifies that it may be called Magma, and the GOST hash function is based on this cipher; the newer standard also specifies a separate 128-bit block cipher called Kuznyechik. Developed in the 1970s and marked Top Secret before being downgraded to Secret in 1990, the cipher was declassified and released to the public in 1994 shortly after the dissolution of the USSR, having served as a Soviet alternative to the United States standard algorithm DES, to which it is structurally similar.