Difference between cryptanalysis and brute force attacks

Question

I wonder about the difference between brute force and cryptanalysis attack? as my professor asked us about the difference, but i searched and found that the brute force is one type of cryptanalysis attacks is that true or there's a difference between them ? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

That's a matter of terminology, but generally cryptanalysis and brute force attack are mutually exclusive. Cryptanalysis means attacking a cryptographic system by looking for something clever that the designers of the system didn't think of, for example finding a mathematical relation that makes some computation fasters. A brute force attack is one that doesn't use any intelligence and enumerates all possibilities; cryptography is always vulnerable to brute force attacks, but if properly designed it makes them practically impossible by arranging for the probability of success to be utterly negligible.