Editing Meet-in-the-middle attack (section)

{{short description|Generic space–time tradeoff cryptographic attack}}
{{about|the cryptanalysis optimisation process|the form of communication interception|Man-in-the-middle attack}}
{{Multiple issues|{{Synthesis|article|date=May 2013}}
{{refimprove|date=March 2009}}}}
The '''meet-in-the-middle attack''' ('''MITM'''), a known-plaintext attack,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.crypto-it.net/eng/attacks/meet-in-the-middle.html|title=Crypto-IT}}</ref> is a generic [[space–time tradeoff]] cryptographic attack against encryption schemes that rely on performing multiple encryption operations in sequence. The MITM attack is the primary reason why [[Double DES]] is not used and why a [[Triple DES]] key (168-bit) can be brute-forced{{clarify|brute-force is not a verb|date=March 2024}} by an attacker with 2<sup>56</sup> space and 2<sup>112</sup> operations.<ref name=":0" />