- What is AES-256 encryption?
- AES-256 is the Advanced Encryption Standard with a 256-bit key, the industry standard for symmetric encryption used by governments and enterprises worldwide.
- Is my data safe using this encryption tool?
- Yes. All encryption and decryption runs locally in your browser using the Web Crypto API. No data is sent to any server.
- Why does decryption fail with the correct password?
- Common causes include algorithm mismatch (encrypting with AES but decrypting with TripleDES), modified ciphertext, or extra whitespace in the password.
- What is the difference between AES, TripleDES, and RC4?
- AES-256 is the modern standard with strong security. TripleDES applies DES three times (slower, legacy). RC4 is a stream cipher considered insecure for new applications.
- Can I encrypt files with this tool?
- This tool encrypts text strings only. For file encryption, use dedicated tools like GPG, OpenSSL, or your operating system's built-in encryption features.
- Is the encrypted output safe to share?
- Yes, ciphertext is safe to share publicly — it cannot be decrypted without the password. However, always share the password through a separate secure channel.
- Should I use this for production encryption?
- Use it for development testing, ad-hoc message encryption, and learning. Production systems handling user data at scale should use managed key infrastructure (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault) with proper key rotation, audit logging, and access controls. The cryptographic primitives are the same; what differs is the operational rigor around key storage and access management.
- Can I decrypt ciphertext I encrypted with OpenSSL or CryptoJS?
- Yes — the tool uses the same OpenSSL-compatible 'Salted__' envelope format that CryptoJS, OpenSSL, pycryptodome, and most language libraries produce by default. Paste your Base64 ciphertext, select the same algorithm, enter the same password, and click decrypt. Compatibility is verified against reference implementations.
- What if the password contains special characters?
- Special characters work fine — the password is UTF-8 encoded before being passed to PBKDF2. Just be careful when copy/pasting passwords from terminals or password managers that might strip whitespace or transform characters (e.g., curly quotes from Word documents). Use the show-password toggle to verify the password looks exactly the same in both encrypt and decrypt steps.
- Why does my ciphertext look completely different each time I encrypt the same text?
- Because the tool generates a fresh random salt and IV (initialization vector) for every encryption, even with the same plaintext and password. This is correct behavior — it prevents an attacker who sees two ciphertexts from knowing they encrypt the same plaintext. Decryption still works because the salt/IV are bundled into the 'Salted__' Base64 envelope.
- Is AES-256 quantum-resistant?
- Symmetric algorithms like AES are believed to be resistant to quantum computers in the sense that Grover's algorithm only provides a square-root speedup — AES-256 retains roughly 128 bits of effective security against a quantum attacker. This is still considered secure. The bigger quantum concern is asymmetric algorithms (RSA, ECDSA) which Shor's algorithm breaks. So AES-256 is fine for long-term encryption; pair it with a post-quantum KEM (Kyber, etc.) if you need quantum-safe key exchange.
