CISSP Practice Exam 2026 – Complete Prep Guide

The term "work factor" in cryptography primarily refers to the time required to break a cryptosystem. This concept quantifies the effort that an attacker must expend in order to successfully compromise a cryptographic system or to retrieve plaintext from ciphertext without access to the decryption key.

Understanding work factor is crucial in evaluating the strength of a cryptographic algorithm. A higher work factor indicates that significantly more resources—whether time, computational power, or financial cost—are needed to carry out a successful attack. This can deter attackers and provide assurance about the security of the encrypted data.

While other factors, such as the quantity of data or the cost of materials, might play roles in certain aspects of cryptography, they do not encapsulate the idea of work factor as it relates to the fundamental strength and viability of cryptographic protections against unauthorized access. Therefore, the essence of the work factor is deeply rooted in its correlation with the time and resources necessary to defeat the cryptographic measures in place.