mcrypt is a replacement for the popular

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

crypt A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...

command. crypt was a file encryption tool that used an

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

very close to the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Enigma cipher. Mcrypt provides the same functionality but uses several modern algorithms such as AES. Libmcrypt, Mcrypt's companion, is a library of code that contains the actual encryption functions and provides an easy method for use. The last update to libmcrypt was in 2007, despite years of unmerged patches. These facts have led security experts to declare mcrypt abandonware and discourage its use in new development. Maintained alternatives include

ccrypt ccrypt is a utility for the secure encryption and decryption of files and streams. It was designed as a replacement for the standard UNIX crypt utility, which is notorious for using a very weak encryption algorithm. ccrypt is based on the Rijnda ...

libressl LibreSSL is an open-source implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. The implementation is named after Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the deprecated predecessor of TLS, for which support was removed in release 2.3.0. The OpenB ...

, and others. Examples of mcrypt usage in a Linux command-line environment: mcrypt --list # See available encryption algorithms. mcrypt -a blowfish myfilename # Encrypts myfilename to myfilename.nc # using the Blowfish encryption algorithm. # You are prompted two times for a passphrase. mcrypt -d mytextfile.txt.nc # Decrypts mytextfile.txt.nc to mytextfile.txt. mcrypt -V -d -a enigma -o scrypt --bare # Can en/decrypt files crypted with SunOS crypt. mcrypt --help It implements numerous

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

algorithms, mostly

block cipher In cryptography, a block cipher is a deterministic algorithm operating on fixed-length groups of bits, called ''blocks''. Block ciphers are specified cryptographic primitive, elementary components in the design of many cryptographic protocols and ...

s and

stream cipher stream cipher is a symmetric key cipher where plaintext digits are combined with a pseudorandom cipher digit stream (keystream). In a stream cipher, each plaintext digit is encrypted one at a time with the corresponding digit of the keystream ...

s, some of which fall under export restrictions in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Algorithms include Data Encryption Standard, DES, blowfish (cipher), Blowfish, RC4, ARCFOUR, Enigma, GOST (block cipher), GOST, LOKI97, RC2, Serpent (cipher), Serpent, Threeway, Twofish, WAKE (cipher), WAKE, and XTEA.

References

External links

The original mcrypt homepage

MCrypt homepage

MCrypt development site
Cryptographic software {{crypto-stub

See also

References

External links