What security goal is achieved by employing AES to encrypt a document?

Employing AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) to encrypt a document primarily achieves the goal of confidentiality. Confidentiality in information security ensures that sensitive information is accessed only by authorized individuals. By encrypting a document using AES, the content is transformed into a format that is unreadable to anyone who does not possess the corresponding decryption key. This means that even if unauthorized parties gain access to the encrypted data, they cannot interpret it without the key, thereby protecting the confidentiality of the information contained within the document.

This distinction is crucial; confidentiality focuses on keeping information private and secure from unauthorized access, which encryption directly supports. Other security goals, such as integrity, involve maintaining the accuracy and consistency of data over its lifecycle, while availability ensures that authorized users have access to data and resources when needed. Non-repudiation serves to ensure that an entity cannot deny the authenticity of their signature on a document or the sending of a message. While these are all important aspects of a comprehensive security strategy, the direct role of AES in this context is to secure the confidentiality of the encrypted document.