“An international team of researchers demonstrated this week
that it was possible to break the security codes commonly used to
protect financial transactions over the Internet.
“While the seven-month effort required a significant amount of
computing power — involving 292 computers at 11 sites in six
countries — it showed that the standard level of encryption for
Internet transactions, known as 512-bit encryption, was not
secure.”
“I don’t think this means that overnight, Web sites will be
attacked, but we need to make the transfer to a larger key
size.”
“… The 512-bit system has become the standard because, with
some exceptions, it is the most secure encryption allowed for
export.”
Complete story. (Free site registration required.)