My Blog

The major banks and security agencies currently use what’s call an RSA 1024bit encryption for secure transaction etc.  Basically, the server has a public key which is freely transmitted via the net while the client holds a private key which are the prime numbers (non-divisible factors) of the public key.  Only client hold the private keys.  The trick on hackinginto the system is to decipher or brute-forcely firgure out the prime numbers by factoring a large number.  Recently, a team of mathematicians has set a new record for factoring a large
number into primes, breaking a massive 307-digit number into its three
indivisible factors and beating the previous record by 30 digits.  When translated into bits (1s and 0s), it’s an astounding 1017-bit encryption, meaning if you got anything less than 1024 encryption, their algorithm will break it. 

The new trick/breakthrough is at the distributed computing level, by taking advantage of computers NOT all at the same facility but anywhere on the planet.  One could easily see if a hacker could gain control of large number of computing power across the globe, he/she could almost break into anything.  Specifically, the gaming consoles such as the late PlayStation3 are optimized for number crunching and the fact that they’re networked make them easy targets. A quick "borrowing" of  a swarm of PS3s would crack open a secure network within minutes. 

It took the team of scientists 95 CPU years to crack open the 1017-bit number, which  is equivalent to 3Billion CPU floating operations (flops) seconds.  The latest tally suggests over 5Million PS3s sold and assuming about 3 millions are networked, it would only take about 16-20 minutes to crack open any secure connection!
But… don’t be too worried, it’s easy to up the encryption number. In fact, the 1024 encryption was upgraded from the previous 512-bit encryption when a similar algorithm was developed in 1999.

Reference: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/523/1