brute force attack

brute force attack

   <cryptography> A method of breaking a cipher (that is, to
   decrypt a specific encrypted text) by trying every possible
   {key}.  The quicker the brute force attack, the weaker the
   cipher.  Feasibility of brute force attack depends on the key
   length of the cipher, and on the amount of computational power
   available to the attacker.  Brute force attack is impossible
   against the ciphers with variable-size key, such as a
   {one-time pad} cipher.

   Breaking ciphers with many workstations
   (http://distributed.net/projects.html.en).

   (2000-01-16)