Security industry pioneer RSA adopted not just one but two encryption tools developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA), greatly increasing the spy agency’s ability to eavesdrop on some Internet communications, a team of academics said.
Reuters reported in December that the NSA had paid RSA US$10 million to make a now-discredited cryptography system the default in software used by a wide range of Internet and computer security programs.
The system, called Dual Elliptic Curve, was a random number generator, but it had a deliberate flaw — or “back door” — that allowed the NSA to crack the encryption.
A group of professors from Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and elsewhere now say they have discovered that a second NSA tool exacerbated the RSA software’s vulnerability.
The academics found that the tool, known as the “Extended Random” extension for secure Web sites, could help crack a version of the RSA’s Dual Elliptic Curve software tens of thousands of times faster, according to an advance copy of their research.
The RSA, now owned by EMC Corp, did not dispute the research when contacted for comment.
The company said it had not intentionally weakened security on any product and added that Extended Random did not prove popular and had been removed from its protection software in the past six months.
“We could have been more skeptical of NSA’s intentions,” RSA chief technologist Sam Curry said. “We trusted them because they are charged with security for the US government and US critical infrastructure.”
Curry declined to say if the government had paid the RSA to incorporate Extended Random in its BSafe security kit, which also housed Dual Elliptic Curve.
An NSA spokeswoman declined to comment on the study or the intelligence agency’s motives in developing Extended Random.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the