Nowadays, technology surrounds everyone and, therefore, the security aspect becomes vital to keep your privacy and data safe.
To give you an idea, Every time you send a private message or make a transfer, online, using your bank’s app, you trust algorithms designed to protect your personal information.
However, this trust also attracts people seeking to crack these security systems. Some do it with not very good intentions, with the idea of stealing confidential information or committing fraud, but others do it as an intellectual challenge or to test how strong the systems of a company or system are..
Focusing on this last aspect, computer security experts, known as ethical hackers or security researchers, look for vulnerabilities in systems to help improve their security. By identifying and correcting these problems, they help protect people and companies from potential cyberattacks.
The legendary LLL algorithm is reinvented to be even more efficient
One of the key pieces in this field is the LLL algorithm. Named after its creators, Arjen Lenstra, Hendrik Lenstra Jr. and László Lovász, it has been a mainstay in the study of cryptography since its arrival in 1982.
Along with its variants, LLL is capable of upending cryptographic schemes in certain scenarios, making it an invaluable tool to ultimately strengthen digital security. However, now we have tried to optimize and improve it to make it even more efficient.
“It’s always nice when a goal that has been worked on for so long… shows that there are still surprises to be found,” says one of the researchers who was not involved in this study.
In a nutshell, what has been achieved, so to speak, is an update. The two people responsible for this improvement in the LLL algorithm are Keegan Ryan and his advisor, Nadia Heninger, who worked together to find ways to improve it.
In a nutshell, the new algorithm combines two very important strategies:
- Recursive structure: Breaks the task into smaller, more manageable parts, making it easier to process.
- Precision management: Carefully control the accuracy of calculations, striking a balance between speed and precision.
They’ve figured out how to make it work faster and handle more difficult tasks. This is a very key aspect because it means they can solve more complicated problems in less time, which in the end helps everyone protect data better..
The greater efficiency of the new LLL pallows working with networks of thousands of dimensions, something that was impossible beforewhich, in the end, opens the door to a world full of new possibilities for:
- Develop new methods to break cryptographic systems.
- Study system security in an improved way.
- Conduct practical experiments to verify the effectiveness of cryptographic attacks.
Furthermore, this new technique has already begun to be useful. Aurel Page, a mathematician at the French national research institute Inria, said that he and his team have implemented an adaptation of the algorithm in some computational tasks in number theory—they are using this technique in specific numerical problems that require advanced mathematical solutions.
