Encryption

Cryptography researchers have identified a weakness in the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) which slightly reduces the complexity of an attack against the algorithm, but it's nowhere near a practical cracking solution.

The new attack was devised by Andrey Bogdanov of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), Belgium, Dmitry Khovratovich of Microsoft Research and Christian Rechberger of École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris. The three were working on a project sponsored by Microsoft Research at the time.

Security researchers have unearthed a piece of malware that mints a digital currency known as Bitcoins by harnessing the immense power of an infected machine's graphical processing units.

Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, announces the world's first software for Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) that enables mobile payment issuers to deliver their mobile payment applications to mobile handsets Over-The-Air (OTA) in a simple, efficient and secure manner.

Hackers have released tools that unlock the software stored on heavily fortified chips so researchers can independently assess their security and spot weaknesses.

Newline Software announced the release of OPTIC, Online Privacy Technology In the Cloud. The solution allows developers to securely query, write, and read encrypted data to and from any cloud data store (e.g. Amazon S3, Windows Azure) without the cloud having any knowledge of that data.

Encrypted data stored in the cloud can only be decrypted by applications on the client device. With OPTIC developers can create solutions with 100% data privacy in the cloud.

German computer scientists have taken advantage of the powerful number-crunching abilities of graphics chips to demonstrate a practical attack on the encryption scheme in programmable chips.

The smallest actions can have massive repercussions. The US army's decision to enlist Bradley Manning as an intelligence analyst and deploy him to Iraq may, if he is found to have indeed been WikiLeaks' source, have led to the biggest series of military and diplomatic leaks in history.

But the reason Manning is now in military detention, awaiting court martial, perhaps ultimately lies in a smaller action still, an error thousands of email users make daily: choosing "cc" rather than "bcc".

A mortgage fraud case has turned into a battle over the Fifth Amendment as the Department of Justice argued that the government can force individuals to disclose their encryption pass phrases.

The Colorado prosecution of a woman accused of a mortgage scam will test whether the government can punish you for refusing to disclose your encryption passphrase.

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home.

Cellcrypt released a version of its voice encryption software for Apple's iPhone on Tuesday, adding to its portfolio of software to prevent eavesdropping on calls.

The product, called Cellcrypt Mobile for iPhone, works with iOS4 on Apple's iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. It is one of two voice encryption applications listed in the App Store, although there are other voice encryption applications for the iPhone platform from vendors such as Goldlock and SecurStar.