To crack 17-character AES password: 100 years and 1 billion dollars
like most other archiving tools, 7-Zip is also capable of encrypting your files. To do this, it utilizes industry standard AES-256 encryption (a.k.a. Rijn Dael) and
recommends a password strength of 10 characters or more. The
Help-function in 7-Zip has a nice illustration of what it would take to
crack a secure AES password.
To accomplish this, one would need:
- cesspools of time
- a processor capable of checking 10 passwords per second
- to check 10 billion passwords per second, a budget of at least 1 billion dollars
Password Length | Single User Attack | Organization Attack |
1 | 2 s | 1 s |
2 | 1 min | 1 s |
3 | 30 min | 1 s |
4 | 12 hours | 1 s |
5 | 14 days | 1 s |
6 | 1 year | 1 s |
7 | 10 years | 1 s |
8 | 19 years | 20 s |
9 | 26 years | 9 min |
10 | 37 years | 4 hours |
11 | 46 years | 4 days |
12 | 55 years | 4 months |
14 | 64 years | 4 years |
15 | 82 years | 22 years |
16 | 91 years | 31 years |
17 | 100 years | 40 years |