Key Length

• Key length should be large enough that a successful brute force attack is futile.
  • The longer the key, the more combinations an attacker will have to try to decrypt a message.
    • Key length is described in terms of bits.
    • Commonly used key sizes are powers of two.

• Moore's Law is requiring longer and longer keys to thwart a brute force attack.
  • In 2002, a key length of 1024 bits was generally considered the minimum necessary for the RSA encryption algorithm.
  • By 2030, a key length of 2048 bits will be the minimum necessary.

Which hash algorithm should be used?

---

---

© 2006 John Michael Pierobon

Notes