My understanding is that encryption is "broken" any time it becomes feasible for someone to decrypt your data without the key. Brute force attacks are always h

My understanding is that encryption is "broken" any time it becomes feasible for someone to decrypt your data without the key. Brute force attacks are always hypothetically possible, but the encryption isn't broken unless such an attack is feasible. As a counter-example, DES would count as "unbroken" under your definition. The EFF built a machine in 1998 for under $250,000 that could crack a DES key in under 24 hours. I don't know what that would cost today, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple GPUs could get you the same thing today. The difference is whether such an attack has even a vanishing chance of succeeding. For AES, the hardware just isn't anywhere close to that. Afaik, there isn't anything that could even hypothetically threaten to make brute force attacks on AES feasible on the table today.