How to encrypt a 192 bit plaintext using AES-192? Can we use AES-192 bit algorithm for 192 bit plaintext? If yes, what are the changes we have to do?
Strange as it may sound, you should not directly use any block cipher directly as a means to provide confidentiality. A block cipher can only handle a statically sized plaintext, which in the case of AES is always 128 bits; it's not 192 bits, that's just the key size.

More importantly a block cipher will always output the same ciphertext if the key and input block remain the same. That means that if you input two 128 bit messages, for instance the ASCII representation of "affirmative, sir", then the ciphertext will be identical. If this message is the answer of two separate questions then an adversary can immediately detect that the answer of two questions is identical as well. This breaks the security of a cipher as it leaks information about the plaintext.

In the strongest semantic security that a cipher can obtain, IND_CPA, the ciphertext output should not leak any information even if the adversary may input as many input messages as he likes.



The simplest mode of operation is ECB mode; it just splits the plaintext into multiple blocks, and then encrypts each block in turn, possibly padding the last block so that the input to the block cipher always receives 128 bits. This solves the first part of the cipher only handling 128 bits, but it does nothing for the security mentioned in the previous sections.

Fortunately there are many modes of operation that do provide such security. AES-CBC is used a lot, but it requires padding - which in itself can be a security risk - as well as a unpredictable IV. This IV or initialization vector is used to change the ciphertext independently of the plaintext. AES-CTR (AES in counter mode) is also used a lot and doesn't require the padding and only a unique nonce (number-used-once) instead of the unpredictable IV.

Currently authenticating ciphers such as GCM are becoming more commonplace as they do not just protect the confidentiality but also the authenticity and integrity of the message. They are generally build using AES-CTR internally.



Note that the size of the plaintext is not automatically protected by AES using any of the modes of operation. This is one of many side channels that may leak information to the attacker. You cannot just encrypt "Yes" to 3 bytes ciphertext and expect that an adversary cannot distinguish it from the 2 bytes required for "No".



When you read about AES-192 is being used to protect your data then you should ask yourself how it is used to do this. To a seasoned cryptographer the use of AES, as the most common unbroken block cipher, only means that a small part of a system is possibly secure.



If you want to encrypt fully random data (such as an AES key) then you could right-pad your data using 64 bits set to zero. Then you could use ECB mode encryption (encrypt two blocks of 64 bits) and encrypt the two blocks of 128 bits. This process is called key wrapping. This is only secure for completely random data though and it is probably better to use more modern techniques such as AES in SIV mode.