Research Shows 160-Bit Encryption Safe for Now

August 11, 2009

Mathematicians at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute spent only six months solving a 112-bit encryption based on elliptical curves. That, they say, is good news, at least for the next 10 years.

The 112-bit parameters are tackled so as to better understand the difficulty of solving mathematical problems underlying elliptical curve cryptography (ECC). According to Joppe Bos and Marcelo Kaihara, who work in the laboratory for cryptologic algorithms, their results should boost confidence in the safety and insolvability of the industry’s standard 160-bit ECC. Although the ECC standard is set to be phased out in 2010, the mathematicians estimated that it would require an effort 16 million times as great to crack a 160-bit ECC.

The mathematicians used 200 computers to upend the 2002 record for solving a curve over a 109-bit prime field. That effort had required nearly 550 days of computing by more than 10,000 members on almost 250 teams, which, sources indicate, equals a year of full-time action by 4000-5000 personal computers.

Details of the lab's intricate computations will be published later.

Source: GenevaLunch.com, July 15