CompTIA Security+ Exam Prep

Answer: B - Initialization vectors (IV) are random values that are used with algorithms to ensure patterns are not created during the encryption process. They are used with keys and do not need to be encrypted when being sent to the destination. If IVs are not used, then two identical plaintext values that are encrypted with the same key will create the same ciphertext. The IV and key should both be used by the algorithm to provide more randomness to the encryption process. A strong and effective cipher has long periods of no repeating patterns within keystream values, is a statistically unpredictable keystream, is not linearly related to the key, and statistically should be an unbiased keystream.