Is 7Zip encryption as secure as AxCrypt?

Question

Is it as secure to use 7Zip encryption to encrypt a file as it is AxCrypt? It's more convenient for me to use 7Zip, and I was wondering if I would be sacrificing any security that way.

Answer 1

Full disclosure: This is Svante from AxCrypt.

It is not true that just because two softwares use AES-256 they will have the same level of security. There are many, many ways to go wrong in the implementation. Many do, repeatedly. Consider for example the WiFi standards and MS Office-encryption which have been flawed in multiple revisions even if they have been using strong and good encryption algorithms as primitives.

The end-result of the encrypted file/archive should be fairly equivalent between AxCrypt and zip-encryption. I'm not sure exactly how it is implemented though, AxCrypt for example has a dynamic key wrap iterative function to make brute force attacks more difficult. Unsure if zip has this, if not, AxCrypt is better for non-full strength passwords (which is just about any password you can remember and type).

As for support of features, AxCrypt does offer languages and compression. We're not fully cross-platform yet, but we're working hard on that. AxCrypt also has other features, that zip does not such as automatic re-encryption and key sharing - while zip of course has the archive function which AxCrypt does not.

One way some use it is together - encrypting zip archives with AxCrypt. Works fine if the zip archives are not too large.

Answer 2

Both use AES-256 encryption, so no, you are not sacrificing any security.

In features alone, 7-Zip offers way more. Compression, platform support, languages, etc...

Answer 3

The "security" of encryption is more closely related to the encryption algorithm in use, not the program performing the encryption (assuming each program actually implements the algorithm correctly). A file encrypted with AES-256 on one program will have the same level of security as a file encrypted with AES-256 on another. So, what you might consider looking at is what encryption algorithms are available to each respective program and how they meet your needs.