SHA-1 kracked!

Another encryption method bites the dust

This is HUGE for the digital security world! The SHA-1 encryption method is a ubiquitous standard used in almost every server software, web browser, online shopping system… the list goes on!

Here is a link to Bruce Schneier’s blog where he was the first to report this development.

One Response to “SHA-1 kracked!”

  1. liam says:

    Mmm, SHA-1 is actually a hash, not encryption so to speak. A hash takes input, and then fairly quickly and easily produces an output, what makes them generally nifty is that it’s supposed to be very hard to both figure out what the input was given the output, as well as very hard to get two different inputs to produce the same output (a collision). What the researchers in China did was to develop a technique to make it slightly easier to find a collision. Lucky for us, slightly easier still means it would take a very powerful computer quite a while to find a collision.

    So, we now move slowly and calmly towards new and more complicated hashing algorithms. : )