Friday, February 09, 2007

Chinese Professor “Bests” Fifth Data Encryption Algorithm

Now that we have your attention, let’s hear that again, in English this time!  A 41-year old Chinese college professor at the University of Beijing has cracked the world’s toughest computer encryption program, the SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm).  For those of you who slept in the back of class, the SHA-1 is the U.S. Government’s most advanced data encryption program.  This action has apparently tasked the Government’s highest level programmers with replacing this now faulty program within the next five years. 

Whoa!  Cracking the code, however, doesn’t mean that it is open season for the “bad guys”.  The odds were truly stacked against Professor Wang Xiaoyun in the first place- about equivalent to wining Powerball several times!  According to the Beijing Digest, this SHA-1 encryption includes the world’s gold standard Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5). Before Professor Wang cracked it, the MD5 could only be deciphered by today’s fastest supercomputer running codes for more than a million years.

So how did the Professor do it?  Although encryption analysis usually cannot be done without the use of computers, according to Wang, the computer only assisted in cracking the algorithm. Most of the time, Wang Xiaoyun calculated manually, and manually designed the methods.

Postscript:  Few corporations, if any, would have to be concerned about a mind of Wang Xiaoyun’s caliber hacking into their databases.  Alas, most computer fraud is perpetrated by employees of average intellect.  Kessler International is the leader in abating and preventing Cyber crime.  Learn how to safeguard your business from the commonplace hazard of Cyber crime, at: http://www.investigation.com/computer_forensics.htm

Posted by Blog Admin in • Computer Forensics
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