Monday, September 23, 2013

RSA Tells Developers to Stop Using Encryption Algorithm Linked to NSA



Security vendor RSA has sent out a message to customers warning developers not to use one of its 
encryption algorithms. "To ensure a high level of assurance in their application, RSA strongly 
recommends that customers discontinue use of Dual EC DRBG and move to a different PRNG," 
stated the RSA advisory. "Technical guidance, including how to change the default PRNG in most 
libraries, is available in the most current product documentation."
Last week, The New York Times reported that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) inserted a 
backdoor into the Dual EC DRBG standard. Many academics and security experts have expressed 
concerns about this particular encryption algorithm in the past.
It isn't known how many commercial products or internally developed enterprise applications 
currently use the standard.
                                                                                                                             Quoted from DevX.

Dual_EC_DRBG means "Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator" and is a
pseudorandom number generator that was designated by the NSA, supposedly it contains a backdoor
that would allow them to know the status of the number generator in any point in time.

Internal documents leaked by Edward Snowden suggested the existence of such backdoor in the
random number generator.



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