cryptanalysis – Page 5 – SSL and internet security news

Critical PGP Vulnerability

May 14, 2018 infossl

cryptanalysis, cryptography, email, encryption, pgp, protocols, Security technology, vulnerabilities

EFF is reporting that a critical vulnerability has been discovered in PGP and S/MIME. No details have been published yet, but one of the researchers wrote: We’ll publish critical vulnerabilities in PGP/GPG and S/MIME email encryption on 2018-05-15 07:00 UTC. They might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails sent in the past. … Read More “Critical PGP Vulnerability” »

LC4: Another Pen-and-Paper Cipher

May 3, 2018 infossl

academicpapers, cryptanalysis, encryption, Security technology

Interesting symmetric cipher: LC4: Abstract: ElsieFour (LC4) is a low-tech cipher that can be computed by hand; but unlike many historical ciphers, LC4 is designed to be hard to break. LC4 is intended for encrypted communication between humans only, and therefore it encrypts and decrypts plaintexts and ciphertexts consisting only of the English letters A … Read More “LC4: Another Pen-and-Paper Cipher” »

Two NSA Algorithms Rejected by the ISO

April 25, 2018 infossl

algorithms, backdoors, cryptanalysis, edwardsnowden, encryption, internetofthings, nsa, Security technology

The ISO has rejected two symmetric encryption algorithms: SIMON and SPECK. These algorithms were both designed by the NSA and made public in 2013. They are optimized for small and low-cost processors like IoT devices. The risk of using NSA-designed ciphers, of course, is that they include NSA-designed backdoors. Personally, I doubt that they’re backdoored. … Read More “Two NSA Algorithms Rejected by the ISO” »

The “Extended Random” Feature in the BSAFE Crypto Library

December 28, 2017 infossl

backdoors, cryptanalysis, cryptography, nsa, randomnumbers, Security technology, tls

Matthew Green wrote a fascinating blog post about the NSA’s efforts to increase the amount of random data exposed in the TLS protocol, and how it interacts with the NSA’s backdoor into the DUAL_EC_PRNG random number generator to weaken TLS. Powered by WPeMatico

Attack on Old ANSI Random Number Generator

October 31, 2017 infossl

academicpapers, cryptanalysis, cryptography, randomnumbers, Security technology

Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a paper that pointed to a potential flaw in the ANSI X9.17 RNG standard. Now, new research has found that the flaw exists in some implementations of the RNG standard. Here’s the research paper, the website — complete with cute logo — for the attack, and Matthew Green’s excellent … Read More “Attack on Old ANSI Random Number Generator” »

Security Flaw in Infineon Smart Cards and TPMs

October 17, 2017 infossl

cryptanalysis, cryptography, estonia, idcards, Security technology, securityengineering, smartcards, vulnerabilities

A security flaw in Infineon smart cards and TPMs allows an attacker to recover private keys from the public keys. Basically, the key generation algorithm sometimes creates public keys that are vulnerable to Coppersmith’s attack: While all keys generated with the library are much weaker than they should be, it’s not currently practical to factorize … Read More “Security Flaw in Infineon Smart Cards and TPMs” »

NSA Brute-Force Keysearch Machine

May 16, 2017 infossl

cryptanalysis, cryptography, encryption, ibm, keys, nsa, Security technology

The Intercept published a story about a dedicated NSA brute-force keysearch machine being built with the help of New York University and IBM. It’s based on a document that was accidentally shared on the Internet by NYU. The article is frustratingly short on details: The WindsorGreen documents are mostly inscrutable to anyone without a Ph.D. … Read More “NSA Brute-Force Keysearch Machine” »

Kalyna Block Cipher

March 28, 2017 infossl

academicpapers, cryptanalysis, cryptography, encryption, Security technology, ukraine

Kalyna is a block cipher that became a Ukrainian national standard in 2015. It supports block and key sizes of 128, 256, and 512 bits. Its structure looks like AES but optimized for 64-bit CPUs, and it has a complicated key schedule. Rounds range from 10-18, depending on block and key sizes. There is some … Read More “Kalyna Block Cipher” »

SHA-1 Collision Found

February 23, 2017 infossl

cryptanalysis, cryptography, hashes, Security technology, sha1

The first collision in the SHA-1 hash function has been found. This is not a surprise. We’ve all expected this for over a decade, watching computing power increase. This is why NIST standardized SHA-3 in 2012. Powered by WPeMatico

Twofish Power Analysis Attack

January 12, 2017 infossl

academicpapers, cryptanalysis, cryptography, encryption, Security technology, sidechannelattacks, twofish

New paper: “A Simple Power Analysis Attack on the Twofish Key Schedule.” This shouldn’t be a surprise; these attacks are devastating if you don’t take steps to mitigate them. The general issue is if an attacker has physical control of the computer performing the encryption, it is very hard to secure the encryption inside the … Read More “Twofish Power Analysis Attack” »