Weak RSA Keys Plague Embedded Devices, But Experts Caution Against Panic

If all of the noise about weak RSA keys and compromised cryptosystems in the last few days has done anything, it’s to confirm what many in the cryptography community have known for quite a long time: When it comes to implementing cryptosystems, there are a whole lot of people doing it wrong...

Three Questions for Billy Brumley on the OpenSSL Timing Attack

Timing attacks have been a problem for designers of cryptosystems–as well as for people implementing those systems–for a long time. They’ve plagued just about every popular system, and although practical attacks have been demonstrated many times, the problem and what can be done to defend against...

Four Questions for Bruce Schneier on the GSM Cipher Crack

Math is hard and cryptography is even harder. So in light of the news that another of the ciphers used to secure traffic on 3G GSM networks has been cracked, we turned to mathematician and cryptographer Bruce Schneier to explain the attack and its ramifications. So here are Schneier’s answer to a...

MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm Hash Collision

MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm Hash Collision source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/11849/info The MD5 algorithm is reported prone to a hash collision weakness. This weakness reportedly allows attackers to create multiple, differing input sources that, when the MD5 algorithm is used, result i...