CAST-256

In cryptography, CAST-256 (or CAST6) is a symmetric-key block cipher published in June 1998.

Howard Heys and Michael Wiener also contributed to the design.

CAST-256 is composed of 48 rounds, sometimes described as 12 "quad-rounds", arranged in a generalized Feistel network.

In RFC 2612, the authors state that, "The CAST-256 cipher described in this document is available worldwide on a royalty-free and licence-free basis for commercial and non-commercial uses."

Currently, the best public cryptanalysis of CAST-256 in the standard single secret key setting that works for all keys is the zero-correlation cryptanalysis breaking 28 rounds with 2246.9 time and 298.8 data.