zipfile cannot read AES encrypted files

[aymill]

BPO	9170
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @amauryfa, @pitrou
Dependencies	bpo-8998: add crypto routines to stdlib
Files	example.zip: Example zip encrypted with WinZip 11.1 using AES 256. Password is "cat".

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2013-10-14.17:40:22.054>
created_at = <Date 2010-07-05.17:42:22.542>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'zipfile cannot read AES encrypted files'
updated_at = <Date 2013-10-14.17:40:22.053>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/aymill'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2013-10-14.17:40:22.053>
actor = 'georg.brandl'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2013-10-14.17:40:22.054>
closer = 'georg.brandl'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2010-07-05.17:42:22.542>
creator = 'aymill'
dependencies = ['8998']
files = ['17872']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 9170
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['109342', '109385', '109650', '199933']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'amaury.forgeotdarc', 'pitrou', 'aymill']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'wont fix'
stage = 'needs patch'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue9170'
versions = ['Python 3.2']

[aymill]

On a WinZip AES-256 encrypted zip, zipfile.extractall raises a RuntimeError for "Bad password for file" when given the correct password. Command line example below:

Python 2.6.2 (release26-maint, Apr 19 2009, 01:56:41) 
[GCC 4.3.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from zipfile import ZipFile
>>> zip = ZipFile("example.zip", "r")
>>> zip.extractall(".", pwd="cat")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 935, in extractall
    self.extract(zipinfo, path, pwd)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 923, in extract
    return self._extract_member(member, path, pwd)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 963, in _extract_member
    source = self.open(member, pwd=pwd)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 898, in open
    raise RuntimeError("Bad password for file", name)
RuntimeError: ('Bad password for file', <zipfile.ZipInfo object at 0xb739e26c>)
>>>

[amauryfa]

zipfile only supports the "Traditional PKWARE Encryption" method.
Support for other encryption methods would be useful.

[pitrou]

Do note that providing a patch first requires that encryption/decryption facilities be made available in the stdlib.
(right now we only offer hashing, and "high-level" socket wrapping)

[birkenfeld]

bpo-8998 has been closed (among others due to legal concerns), so this need not be kept open.

[adiroiban]

Even if stdlib will never support WinZIP AES encrpyption, it would be useful to allow for downstream project to implement it.

---

There is pyzipper based on a fork but the code is not very different to what we have in stdlib.

Do you think that we can have something like this in stdlib to allow extending

A very simple proof of concept downstream code is here that can only read AES ZIP files https://gist.github.com/adiroiban/18dcb49ee3ed755c003c74a4eb85d3a4

---

It is using this patch for stdblib

--- lib/python3.12/zipfile/__init__.py        2025-07-17 11:19:59.376677338 +0100
+++ src/dev_tools/zipfile_init.py       2025-07-17 11:21:50.797894299 +0100
@@ -1286,6 +1286,9 @@
 
     """
 
+    _ZipInfo = ZipInfo
+    _ZipExtFile = ZipExtFile
+
     fp = None                   # Set here since __del__ checks it
     _windows_illegal_name_trans_table = None
 
@@ -1456,7 +1459,7 @@
                 # Historical ZIP filename encoding
                 filename = filename.decode(self.metadata_encoding or 'cp437')
             # Create ZipInfo instance to store file information
-            x = ZipInfo(filename)
+            x = self._ZipInfo(filename)
             x.extra = fp.read(centdir[_CD_EXTRA_FIELD_LENGTH])
             x.comment = fp.read(centdir[_CD_COMMENT_LENGTH])
             x.header_offset = centdir[_CD_LOCAL_HEADER_OFFSET]
@@ -1592,11 +1595,11 @@
                 "Attempt to use ZIP archive that was already closed")
 
         # Make sure we have an info object
-        if isinstance(name, ZipInfo):
+        if isinstance(name, self._ZipInfo):
             # 'name' is already an info object
             zinfo = name
         elif mode == 'w':
-            zinfo = ZipInfo(name)
+            zinfo = self._ZipInfo(name)
             zinfo.compress_type = self.compression
             zinfo._compresslevel = self.compresslevel
         else:
@@ -1664,7 +1667,7 @@
             else:
                 pwd = None
 
-            return ZipExtFile(zef_file, mode, zinfo, pwd, True)
+            return self._ZipExtFile(zef_file, mode, zinfo, pwd, True)
         except:
             zef_file.close()
             raise
@@ -1762,7 +1765,7 @@
         """Extract the ZipInfo object 'member' to a physical
            file on the path targetpath.
         """
-        if not isinstance(member, ZipInfo):
+        if not isinstance(member, self._ZipInfo):
             member = self.getinfo(member)
 
         # build the destination pathname, replacing
@@ -1838,7 +1841,7 @@
                 "Can't write to ZIP archive while an open writing handle exists"
             )
 
-        zinfo = ZipInfo.from_file(filename, arcname,
+        zinfo = self._ZipInfo.from_file(filename, arcname,
                                   strict_timestamps=self._strict_timestamps)
 
         if zinfo.is_dir():
@@ -1868,8 +1871,8 @@
         the name of the file in the archive."""
         if isinstance(data, str):
             data = data.encode("utf-8")
-        if not isinstance(zinfo_or_arcname, ZipInfo):
-            zinfo = ZipInfo(filename=zinfo_or_arcname,
+        if not isinstance(zinfo_or_arcname, self._ZipInfo):
+            zinfo = self._ZipInfo(filename=zinfo_or_arcname,
                             date_time=time.localtime(time.time())[:6])
             zinfo.compress_type = self.compression
             zinfo._compresslevel = self.compresslevel
@@ -1910,7 +1913,7 @@
             directory_name = zinfo_or_directory_name
             if not directory_name.endswith("/"):
                 directory_name += "/"
-            zinfo = ZipInfo(directory_name)
+            zinfo = self._ZipInfo(directory_name)
             zinfo.compress_size = 0
             zinfo.CRC = 0
             zinfo.external_attr = ((0o40000 | mode) & 0xFFFF) << 16

Would you consider such a patch ?

Thanks

[brianschubert]

@adiroiban for better visibility, I'd suggest opening a discussion on https://discuss.python.org/c/ideas/6 and/or opening a new issue for this specific feature