Robert Lemos

Flawed Deployments Undermine Kerberos Security

Significant weaknesses in the common configuration of Kerberos-based authentication servers could allow attackers to more easily circumvent security measures in networks that rely on the open authentication standard, according to recent research presented by consultants at the recent Black Hat USA 2010 conference.

The researchers found several common configuration problems that may allow attackers to significantly weaken the security that Kerberos provides.

DarkReading

Over the Horizon: Bulletproofing Cryptography

Much of today's data security rests on encryption techniques involving mathematical functions that are easy to perform but hard to reverse, such as multiplying two large prime numbers. Factoring the result without knowing either of the prime numbers is very difficult, at least for the computers we use today; it could take thousands of years for even the most powerful supercomputer to identify the original numbers and crack an encrypted message.

The task would be a snap for a quantum computer, however.

Technology Review Magazine