Strength of below aes encryption

Question

Need to store encrypted user code in our database and get the decrypted form in return. Using the standard node module crypto to do so. Wanted to understand the strength of below encryption in terms of security. Does it offer enough security and how does choice of password affect strength of encryption here. Sorry a bit new to security and encryption.

var crypto = require('crypto');
var algorithm = 'aes256'; // or any other algorithm supported by OpenSSL
var key = 'some_password';
var text = 'EGGDFRR';

var cipher = crypto.createCipher(algorithm, key);  
var encrypted = cipher.update(text, 'utf8', 'hex') + cipher.final('hex');
var decipher = crypto.createDecipher(algorithm, key);
var decrypted = decipher.update(encrypted, 'hex', 'utf8') + decipher.final('utf8');

Answer 1

var key = 'some_password';

This needs to go.

Using a printable string as the actual key is not a good idea. You're likely only going to be selecting printable characters from the bottom half of the ASCII table which is a very small amount of entropy per byte, and sure this may be for testing but you would do well to look into the complete solution even at this stage.

Even if you're only exploring or practising, old habits die hard. Start secure.

The crypto module provides for a Password-based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF2), that can turn printable strings into pretty good key material as the crypto.pbkdf2 class.