In the 1970s, computer technology was becoming more widely used. After studying computer security used by the U.S. government, it was decided there was a need for an encryption system. The National Bureau of Standards and National Security Agency asked for proposals to protect unclassified and sensitive information used government-wide. On the second request for suggestions, IBM proposed the Data Encryption Standard (DES) which was later accepted as a federal standard. With the advancements in technology present in the modern day, DES is pretty insecure now but it was innovative for early computer days.