Sales of encryption software are shooting up thanks to claims that two of the most trusted encryption schemes in digital communications have been broken.
Last month, a computer engineer announced he had “deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world's digital mobile phone calls.” Developed in 1988, the G.S.M. algorithm is the cellular communication industry’s most widely-used encryption protocol. But now its security scheme is considered to be useless.
Just last week, engineers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel announced that in less than two hours, they had cracked the KASUMI system, a 128-bit A5/3 algorithm implemented across 3G networks.
The defeat of these two algorithms has assured that virtually any cellular conversation or online digital transaction that depends upon either of these exploited technologies are open to monitoring and interception by hackers, thieves, spies, government agencies, or terrorists, according to Gold Line Group, an Israel-based secure communications company, d/b/a Gold Lock.
“This devastating one-two punch impacts over 85 percent of the world's cellular users," according to Noam Copel, Gold Lock’s CEO.
Gold Lock says it’s seen an unexpected surge in sales as a result of two major encryption breaches occurring within weeks of each other.
"As these users realize their business and personal conversations are wide open to eavesdropping, they are quickly turning to military-grade encrypted phones as a solution," Copel added.
