Today’s encryption algorithms are almost impossible to ‘brute-force’. This makes it increasingly difficult for hackers to expose encrypted information by simply guessing the encryption key. As a direct result, attacks have evolved and there are now far more threats than simple brute force based attacks.

Technically, a brute force attack is still possible on older cryptographic algorithms. DES and Triple DES are known algorithms that have been vulnerable to brute force due to limitations on key size. As a result, the current mainstream encryption algorithm is AES that utilizes varying key lengths, which resultantly take longer to crack.

The truth for any modern encryption algorithm is that the major weakness lies in the key being used, which effectively dictates how effective the encryption will be.

In the past, computational limitations required limited key lengths, but in today’s multi-core parallel processing world 4096-bit and even larger keys are not unheard of.

Cryptography developments have largely eliminated the effectiveness of brute force attacks when appropriate guidelines are followed to ensure key length and that obviously modern encryption techniques are being used.
However, thanks to the downfall of brute-force attacks there has been growth in other forms of attack such as side-channel and man in the middle attacks. These can both be very effective should developers not follow appropriate guidelines when it comes to security.