Cryptosystems Showing Signs of 'Wear and Tear'...

[Teddy Rogers]

Cryptosystems Showing Signs of 'Wear and Tear'

It's been an interesting year in the cryptography world, with new attacks on several algorithms, continued problems with hash functions and the recent research on weak RSA keys. With all of that as a backdrop, some of the brightest minds in the field, gathered here for the RSA Conference, said that there are some worrying cracks showing in the cryptosystems that secure electronic communications.

Speaking on the annual cryptographers panel on Tuesday, Whit Diffie, Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir all discussed the many problems that are facing users and implementers of cryptosystems, and said that the issues are real, varied and difficult to address. The research published earlier this month that showed there are a small but significant number of RSA public keys that are either repeated or weak due to bad random number generators highlighted one problem, but there are others, the experts said.

/>https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/cryptosystems-showing-signs-wear-and-tear-022812

Ted.