Encryption

techdudehere

I'm not sure how I would answer a question regarding strongest or weakest encryption choices? I think this would change over time, so I am not convinced googling a quick answer would be trustworthy.

quinnyfly

Hi Techdudehere <great name BTW>.. If you could be a little more specific about what exactly you are refering too, it might help so we can post some info that may answer your question. This is my attempt at it anyhow:

Strongets encryption, if it is symmetric encryption - AES256 (rijndeal), and for asymmetric encryption to date the strongest is - RSA.

Weakest symmetric might be the old DES standard <only ciphers with one round/can be broken with brute force attacks!!>, remember that block cipher algorithms are stronger than stream ciphers, and a good way to remember your symmetric algorithms - (I made this up for my Sec+ exam)

"AES and 3DES CAST IDEAS about RC and OTP."

The strenght of encryption basically comes from three things: The strenght of the algorithm, the lenght of the key, and the scerecy of the key. The more complex the encryption type the stronger it is, so it becomes harder to break or "crack". Be aware however, that stronger alogrithms and those that specifically use more rounds to cipher data also require extra processing overhead. This consumes computer and networking resources which can reduce networking efficiency.

Hope this is helpful, if not, please post again with specifics so we can try and help out:)

Bill_h_pike

Strongets encryption, if it is symmetric encryption - AES256 (rijndeal), and for asymmetric encryption to date the strongest is - RSA.

I disagree.

Its hard to assess the strength of an encryption algorithm. Generally, algorithms are more secure if they require more resources (time and memory) to break.

Some encryption algorithms have flaws ("breaks") that enable key recovery faster then by brute force. Finding breaks requires sophisticated mathematical techniques. Even if breaks are found, they may not significantly affect an algorithm security. For example, in 2011, a break was discovered in AES. However, the break requires 2^126 computations to recover an AES-128 key, which is significantly beyond the capabilities of computers for the foreseeable future.

Its not possible to know for certain that an encryption algorithm does not have any breaks because the P = NP Problem is unresolved. Therefore, its not possible to say any algorithm is the strongest. Furthermore, for any given algorithm, a stronger algorithm can be generated by iteration, like how 3DES was generated from DES.