Breaking DES

1997: 3,500 machines where used to infer a DES key. It required four months to do so.
1998: special hardware (DES cracker) was construced at a cost of $100,000 and could find a DES key in just four days.
So its still rather secure because the resources to break it are still rather expensive. But it is certainly on the verge of being obsolete.
3DES is still pretty good. 2112 bits effectively.

1997: 3,500 machines where used to infer a DES key. It required four months to do so.