"Number-Crunchers Set New Record for Cracking Online Encryption Keys"

A team composed of computer scientists from the University of California San Diego, the French National Center for Scientific Research, the University of Limoges, and the French research institute for digital sciences Inria, has set a new record for cracking the largest encryption key. The team was able to factor an RSA key that has 240 decimal digits and 795 bits. The previous record was made in 2010 in which a key with 232 decimal digits and 768 bits was cracked. The team also computed a discrete logarithm that is 795 bits in size. According to researchers, it took them a total of 35 million core hours to crack RSA-240 and compute the discrete logarithm. The calculation does not pose a threat to computer security as the size of the RSA key broken in this record is much smaller than the size of keys used by modern computers. However, based on Moore's Law, computer scientists expect to be able to crack larger keys as the processing power of computers increases. This article continues to discuss RSA cryptography, the importance of discrete logarithms, and the new record set for cracking encryption keys.  

New Scientist reports "Number-Crunchers Set New Record for Cracking Online Encryption Keys"