How many characters to make Winzip AES 256 unbreakable?

How many characters to make Winzip AES 256 unbreakable?
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Subject Author Date
How many characters to make Winzip AES 256 unbreakable? Zak 05-13-2006
Posted by Zak on May 13, 2006, 2:27 pm
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Winzip offers 256 bit AES. So do other apps.

If I use a password made up of ordinary characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) with
no specials then how many characters do I need to use to make AES 256
uncrackable by a brute force attack?

The info out there talks mainly of key length but I am not familiar with
this field and I can sense they are not talking about the length of the
password I am using.

There is a little bit here but it seems out of date:

<http://www.dekart.com/howto/howto_disk_encryption/howto_recover_lost_pa
ssword/>


Posted by Richard Urban on May 13, 2006, 2:50 pm
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Almost any encryption is breakable if you throw enough horse power at the
problem.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

> Winzip offers 256 bit AES. So do other apps.
>
> If I use a password made up of ordinary characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) with
> no specials then how many characters do I need to use to make AES 256
> uncrackable by a brute force attack?
>
> The info out there talks mainly of key length but I am not familiar with
> this field and I can sense they are not talking about the length of the
> password I am using.
>
> There is a little bit here but it seems out of date:
>
> <http://www.dekart.com/howto/howto_disk_encryption/howto_recover_lost_pa
> ssword/>
>



Posted by Sebastian Gottschalk on May 13, 2006, 4:13 pm
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Richard Urban wrote:
> Almost any encryption is breakable if you throw enough horse power at the
> problem.

MVP, hein? Where did you buy that title?

Posted by Imhotep on May 13, 2006, 4:11 pm
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Zak wrote:

> Winzip offers 256 bit AES. So do other apps.
>
> If I use a password made up of ordinary characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) with
> no specials then how many characters do I need to use to make AES 256
> uncrackable by a brute force attack?
>
> The info out there talks mainly of key length but I am not familiar with
> this field and I can sense they are not talking about the length of the
> password I am using.
>
> There is a little bit here but it seems out of date:
>
> <http://www.dekart.com/howto/howto_disk_encryption/howto_recover_lost_pa
> ssword/>

...nothing is unbreakable. The trick is to make it so difficult that is not
worth the average hacker/crackers time...

So, knowing that, the bigger (generally speaking) the password the better.
However, you also want to make it is a non dictionary word with a wide
variety of charters (alpha numeric, uppercase/lowercase, etc). The more
random looking the password that better...

-- Imhotep

Posted by Steven L Umbach on May 13, 2006, 4:23 pm
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AES encrypted files themselves are extremely secure if the decryption key is
not available but in your case your password is the key. I am not sure
exactly how Winzip hashes the password but take Windows XP as an example you
need to use a complex password/pass phrase of at least 15 characters to
consider the password uncrackable by today's standards. Also keep in mind
that keyboard loggers are a risk in capturing your password that is a lot
easier than cracking a password. Keyboard loggers can be software or
hardware. --- Steve


> Winzip offers 256 bit AES. So do other apps.
>
> If I use a password made up of ordinary characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) with
> no specials then how many characters do I need to use to make AES 256
> uncrackable by a brute force attack?
>
> The info out there talks mainly of key length but I am not familiar with
> this field and I can sense they are not talking about the length of the
> password I am using.
>
> There is a little bit here but it seems out of date:
>
> <http://www.dekart.com/howto/howto_disk_encryption/howto_recover_lost_pa
> ssword/>
>



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