# Random number generation

When generating random data for use in cryptographic operations, such as an initialization vector for encryption in `CBC` mode, you do not want to use the standard `random` module APIs. This is because they do not provide a cryptographically secure random number generator, which can result in major security issues depending on the algorithms in use.

Therefore, it is our recommendation to always use your operating system’s provided random number generator, which is available as `os.urandom()`. For example, if you need 16 bytes of random data for an initialization vector, you can obtain them with:

    >>> import os
    >>> iv = os.urandom(16)

If you need your random number as an big integer, you can use `int.from_bytes` to convert the result of `os.urandom`:

    >>> serial = int.from_bytes(os.urandom(16), byteorder="big")

In addition, the Python standard library includes the `secrets` module, which can be used for generating cryptographically secure random numbers, with specific helpers for text-based formats.