A symmetric key cryptographic method is provided for short operations. The method includes batching a plurality of operation parameters (1503), and performing an operation according to a corresponding operation parameter (1505). The symmetric key cryptographic method is a Data Encryption Standard (DES) method. The short operations can be less than about 80 bytes. The short operations can be between 8 and 80 bytes. The method includes reading the batched parameters from a dynamic random access memory (1504), and transmitting each operation through a DES engine according to the operations parameter (1505).