There are encryption softwares like Veracrypt which encrypt data and the only way to open an encrypted file is via password, but simple compressing softwares like RAR also provides password protection.
Now the problem with passwords is that: it can be broken using brute force attacks.
So my question is, what makes Veracrypt any different from RAR softwares in case of such attacks, what's the point in encryption?
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Log in to answerBest Answer · By JanBask Cyber Security Expert
Answered on Mar 16, 2022
Is veracrypt safe can be answered as VeraCrypt offers the possibility of full disk encryption, the aim being to protect all your file system from unauthorised access. Even if the process depends on a password and is theoretically brute-forcible, this does not mean that the attack will be successful in a reasonable amount of time. Taken from VeraCrypt website: As an example, when the system partition is encrypted, TrueCrypt uses PBKDF2-RIPEMD160 with 1000 iterations whereas in VeraCrypt we use 327661. And for standard containers and other partitions, TrueCrypt uses at most 2000 iterations but VeraCrypt uses 655331 for RIPEMD160 and 500000 iterations for SHA-2 and Whirlpool.
This enhanced security adds some delay only to the opening of encrypted partitions without any performance impact to the application use phase. This is acceptable to the legitimate owner but it makes it much harder for an attacker to gain access to the encrypted data. The large number of iterations is supposed to add a significant delay to the decryption operation, so that an attack would take tens/hundreds of years to complete. Of course, this applies if a strong password is used. If your system is stolen, the probability of your files being accessed is very limited. WinRar password protection is used to protect individual files(archives) and uses AES 256. Provided you use a strong enough password, the brute force process would also take too much time to make it useful, so using passwords to protect archives is not a bad idea.
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