Chinese researchers have made the claim about discovering a method to decipher the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman 2048 bit signing algorithm present in blockchains and other security protocols, as reported by Cointelegraph.
According to Cointelegraph, RSA is a cryptographic technique which uses a public key to encrypt data and a private key to decrypt it. Reportedly, the Chinese researchers stated that the encryption could be inversed through a quantum computer with 372 qubits. Comparatively, the newest IBM Osprey quantum computer carries a processing capacity of 433 qubits. Furthermore, the quantum computer can process all possible solutions to a cryptographic problem and attempt them all at one go.
On the basis of information by Cointelegraph, insights provided by Bruce Schneier, an American cryptographer, stated that Chinese researchers are believed to have combined “classical lattice reduction factoring techniques with a quantum approximate optimisation algorithm,” that factored 48-bit numbers utilising a 10-qubit quantum computer.
“Apparently what happened is another guy who had previously announced he was able to break traditional asymmetric encryption using classical computers … but reviewers found a flaw in his algorithm and that guy had to retract his paper. But this Chinese team realised that the step that killed the whole thing could be solved by small quantum computers. So they tested and it worked,” Roger Grimes, a security expert, highlighted.
(With insights from Cointelegraph)
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