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Schneier: The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG
Bruce Schneier has posted an interesting look at a U.S. random number generator standard. "What Shumow and Ferguson showed is that these numbers have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can predict the output of the random-number generator after collecting just 32 bytes of its output. To put that in real terms, you only need to monitor one TLS internet encryption connection in order to crack the security of that protocol. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG."
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Schneier: The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG Posted Nov 16, 2007 10:29 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] Call me paranoid, but I have been worrying for a while now that my bank's electronic number generator (that I need to acknowledge transactions etc.) would indeed fit in this rather grim picture rather perfectly.I'll start buying socks.
Schneier: The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG Posted Nov 21, 2007 11:51 UTC (Wed) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] Oh don't worry about it, your security token most likely relies on DES which is breakable by anyone with $10,000, not just NSA.
Schneier: The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG Posted Nov 22, 2007 16:18 UTC (Thu) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] If your bank is still using DES and not AES, or at the very least 3DES, you should change banks...
Schneier: The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG Posted Nov 22, 2007 21:39 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] You're talking about one of those key-fob devices that flash random numbers at you on a timer, right? If so, it's not using anything elliptic-curve based. Seriously.
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