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How long to brute force a .7z password

2005-08-10
2012-12-08
  • Nobody/Anonymous

    I'm reviewing an encrypted compression solution for the company I work at and would like somebodhy privey to the 7Zip code to give their estimations it would take to brute force a password encrypted .7z archive.

    From my own calculations (using a password cracker) a 1-12char passworded .ZIP file can be brute forced in only 5-6 days on today's PCs.  And if you use WinZip 8.0 or previous (they fixed it in 8.1) your password can be cracked in under 7mins.

    I'm challenging the authors or anybody that understands the .7z code to give us some estimations on .7z cracking.

    I feel these are reasonable parameters:
    1. We have a 4ghz CPU (with hyperthreading and dual core) giving us almost 20% more power
    2. We are using a totally random password (no dictionary) composed of any US English keyboard character.
    3. The password is approx 12 chars and our cracker needs to start at 5 chars and work it's way up

    I would also like to know how many passwords per second we can compare, my AMD XP 1.7ghz can compare almost 2million .ZIP passwords per second.  Obviously this depends on the algorythm but remember this post is a request for estimates.

    If anybody wants to contact me directly... towens01<AT>UnityHealth<DOT>org

     
    • Igor Pavlov

      Igor Pavlov - 2005-08-10

      .zip encryption in 7-zip is not too secure.
      .7z encryption in 7-zip  is secure (It uses AES-256 and SHA-256).

      From 7-Zip help about .7z encryption:

      We will estimate time of exhaustive password search attack, when password is random sequence of small Latin letters.

      We suppose that one user can check 10 passwords per second and organization (with budget about $1 billion) can check 10 billions passwords per second. We also suppose that each 2 years processor doubles it's performance, so each additional Latin letter of long password adds about 9 years against exhaustive key search attack.

      So we have such estimated time for attack:

      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
      13 64 years 4 years
      14 73 years 13 years
      15 82 years 22 years
      16 91 years 31 years
      17 100 years 40 years

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      Thanks for the info, I am aware that the .ZIP file format uses a very weak password encryption, in fact I've just finished my results on testing, these figures assume the newest/fastest Intel cpu (almost 4ghz dual core /w hyperthreading).

      The time to crack a classic .ZIP file...

      A. If you use a password found in a dictionary, even with numbers at the beginning and/or end:
          Less than 24hrs despite length of password

      B. If you just use numbers and only upper or only lower case:
              2005 Summer
         5 chars long: 2 secs
         6 chars long: 2 mins
         7 chars long: 1 hrs
         8 chars long: 1 days
         9 chars long: 50 days
        10 chars long: 6 yr

      C. If you use numbers, upper and lower case:
              2005 Summer   
         5 chars long: 30 secs
         6 chars long: 30 mins
         7 chars long: 6 hrs
         8 chars long: 3 yrs
         9 chars long: 25 yrs
        10 chars long: 1,350 yrs

      D. If you use numbers, upper and lower case and use a keyboard character (the symbols above the number keys and such)
              2005 Summer
         5 chars: 1 mins
         6 chars: 1 hour
         7 chars: 3 days
         8 chars: 1 yrs
         9 chars: 50 yrs
        10 chars: 3,400yrs

      E. If you use numbers, lower & upper case, keyboard characters and insert ASCII codes by holding down ALT and typing in numbers
              2005 Summer   
          5 chars: 5 mins
          6 chars: 17 hrs
          7 chars: 35 days
          8 chars: 10 yrs
          9 chars: 1,000 yrs
         10 chars: 100,000 yrs

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      By the way, those calculations for .7z passwords after 7 characters look funny, either those calculations are VERY incorrect or the encryption .7z is using has tons of duplicate hashes after the 7 char mark.

      Obviously the longer the password, the dynamically longer it takes to crack it.

      Can anybody comment on those bizarre figures for .7z?

       
      • Nobody/Anonymous

        The calculations for .7z passwords after 7 characters are linear because processor speed grows exponentially. It is assumed that every two years you can buy a computer that is two times faster than the computer you bought 2 years ago.

         
    • Josh Harris

      Josh Harris - 2005-08-10

      Here are some real world numbers using Advanced Zip Password Recovery on my machine, an AMD 3000+.  My machine can check 11,000,000 passwords per second.

      Assuming the character set (a-z A-Z 09) which is 62 characters

      05 = 1.39 Minutes
      06 = 1.43 Hours
      07 = 3.71 Days
      08 = 229.73 Days
      09 = 39.02 Years
      10 = 2419.46 Years

      The math is as follows:

      Total_passwords_to_check = (characters_in_char_set) POWER (password_length)
      Time = Total_passwords_to_check / (passwords per second)

      Char set (a-z A-Z 09) = 62 characters_in_char_set

      password_length = 5
      Total_passwords_to_check = 62 ^ 5 = 916,132,832
      Time = 916,132,832 / (11,000,000 p/s) = 83.28 seconds

      password_length = 6
      Total_passwords_to_check = 62 ^ 6 = 56,800,235,584
      Time = 56,800,235,584 / (11,000,000 p/s) = 5,163.66 seconds = 1.43 Hours

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      "The calculations for .7z passwords after 7 characters are linear because processor speed grows exponentially. It is assumed that every two years you can buy a computer that is two times faster than the computer you bought 2 years ago."

      Nice to know.

      CPU speed DID GROW exponentially in recent 40 years.

      But are you SURE that it wil also do in next 40 years ???

       
      • Nobody/Anonymous

        I'm not sure about 40 years, but in the next 10 years we will likely still keep on watching exponential grows in terms performance/socket. If the algorithm is parallel you can enjoy the exponential growth. Just look at Intel and AMD public roadmaps. I have also insider info that Intel has started design of an Itanium core that will be produced in 8, 16 and 32 cores per socket. I'm pretty sure we will see it within 10 years.

         
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      where do i find a brute forcer for retreaving a 7z password? I have a password protected 7z and forgot the pasword :(

       
      • Nobody/Anonymous

        As far as I know, no brute force tool has .7z support.  Of course the fact that it doesn't will only encourage hackers to add support for it, especially as .7z support grows.

        I just noticed at least one 3rd party app supports .7z now, ZipGenius.  I wonder how long until a major app like WinZip adds support.

         
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      "and forgot the pasword :("

      Is it poor ???

      Up to cca 6 chars all UPPER or all lower CaSe ?

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      "I just noticed at least one 3rd party app supports .7z now, ZipGenius. I wonder how long until a major app like WinZip adds support."
      Does winzip support rar?

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      Last I saw, WinZip doesn't support RAR nor ACE.

      I'm dead sold on 7Zip because of it's simplicity and it's wide file support.

       

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