Which Encryption Technology does WinRAR use?
WinRAR Uses AES-256 Bit Encryption Technology
Two cryptographers, Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen, developed the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm, also known as the RijnDael cipher. In 2001 the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) adopted AES as the industry standard for secure data encryption. This method is used worldwide in both hardware and software.
AES Encryption provides a higher level of security than previous encryption methods, such as DES (Data Encryption Standard), which was the standard encryption algorithm for many years and was widely used by both government institutions and banks.
A new encryption standard was developed to prevent “brute force” attacks, which had become relatively successful in cracking these older encryption algorithms.
Modern AES encryption uses 128 or 256-bit keys. The higher the number of bits in the key, the more possible key combinations there are and the harder the code is to crack.
AES-128 Bit: 340.282.366.920.938.463.463.374.607.431.768.211.456 possible key combinations
AES-256 Bit: 115.792.089.237.316.195.423.570.985.008.687.907.853.269.984.665.640. 564. 039. 457. 584.007.913.129.639.936 possible key combinations
Besides governmental institutions and organizations, WinRAR is used by the World Bank, United Nations and many other non-profit organizations.
How has WinRAR Encryption Algorithm Improved with RAR 5.00? The password-based key derivation function is now based on (PBKDF2) using HMAC-SHA256; this is the core of the WinRAR security mechanism.
- A special password verification value detects wrong passwords without unpacking the entire file.
- If archive headers are not encrypted (“encrypt file names” option is disabled), file checksums for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special password dependent algorithm. This prevents third parties from guessing file contents based on checksums.
