Paper 2004/078
Analysis of the WinZip encryption method
Tadayoshi Kohno
Abstract
WinZip is a popular compression utility for Microsoft Windows computers, the latest version of which is advertised as having "easy-to-use AES encryption to protect your sensitive data." We exhibit several attacks against WinZip's new encryption method, dubbed "AE-2" or "Advanced Encryption, version two." We then discuss secure alternatives. Since at a high level the underlying WinZip encryption method appears secure (the core is exactly Encrypt-then-Authenticate using AES-CTR and HMAC-SHA1), and since one of our attacks was made possible because of the way that WinZip Computing, Inc.~decided to fix a different security problem with its previous encryption method AE-1, our attacks further underscore the subtlety of designing cryptographically secure software.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
PS
- Category
- Applications
- Publication info
- Published elsewhere. Unknown where it was published
- Keywords
- WinZipZipcompressionencryptionapplied cryptographyattackssecurity fixes.
- Contact author(s)
- tkohno @ cs ucsd edu
- History
- 2004-05-09: last of 5 revisions
- 2004-03-14: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2004/078
- License
-
CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2004/078,
author = {Tadayoshi Kohno},
title = {Analysis of the {WinZip} encryption method},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2004/078},
year = {2004},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2004/078}
}
