A new piece of ransomware that emerged earlier this month is encrypting its victim’s files with an easily breakable cryptographic algorithm. BitCrypt, as it is known, purports to lock down files with 1024-bit RSA encryption but actually only deploys a much weaker 426-bit key.
According to researchers Cedric Pernet and Fabien Perigaud, the makers of BitCrypt may have accidentally deployed this much weaker encryption algorithm that is incredibly easy to break. So easy in fact, the researchers say they can break BitCrypt’s encryption using a standard computer in a matter of hours. Pernet and Perigauld are a pair of researchers working for Cassidian, the security division of the European Aerospace Defence and Space group.
