A new world record has been set by French scientists after they managed to crack the world's most complex encryption key. In this case, the encryption key has 240 characters and is 8 digits longer than its predecessor. The key in question is called RSA-240, it is 795 bits long and consists of 240 decimal digits.
In order to crack the RSA key, the researchers relied on a network of computers that provided 35 million hours of computing work, which translates to about 4,000 years. Of course, this process is not an indication that the encryption keys used to protect our conversations and messages are at risk. The key in question that the scientists is much weaker than the encryption keys used to secure our data.
What makes decrypting a 240-character RSA key difficult is the fact that encrypting information using the RSA algorithm involves creating a key by multiplying two prime numbers together.
The scientists used a network of computers in France, Germany and the US to perform their calculations. The process of calculating the algorithm was a time-consuming task, taking 27 million core-hours , while breaking RSA-240 took 8 million core-hours.
One of the researchers said after achieving the new record: “We were faster than the previous record, although we calculated something bigger.”
This record is not an indication that the encryption used is actually under threat, as the RSA keys used to secure data reach 2048 bits in size.
Encryption is one of the most essential security , and with increasing computing power, scientists must always be on the lookout to ensure that the encryption keys used every day remain unbreakable.
