Internet Security Research Group (Organization): news timeline & CVEs

Claude AI Solves 25-Year NSA Cryptography Mystery in Just 30 Minutes

Anthropic’s Claude traced NIST curve seeds to a 1990s C random generator, not hidden NSA backdoors.

Anthropic says an internal Claude research model traced the published seeds for NIST curves P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384 and P-521 to lrand48, an older C library generator, in under 30 minutes. The seeds match runs initialized with Unix timestamps between May 1997 and April 1998; P-256 was the 1,842nd candidate from a run started on 16 August 1997. Five ANSI X9.62 example seeds fit the same construction, and some base points were linked to FreeLIP. Anthropic says this is not a cryptographic break, private keys were not recovered, and no changes to deployed systems are warranted, though B-163 and several base points remain unexplained.

Cyber Security NewsOct 17, 16:59 UTC · 3d agoResearch 4 sources7· 4 reads

Anthropics' Claude cracks a 25-year-old NSA cryptography mystery in under 30 minutes

Claude traced NIST's unexplained ECDSA curve seeds to lrand48 initialized with a 1997-1998 Unix timestamp.

NIST standardized several ECDSA elliptic curves in 2000 using seeds supplied by the NSA without explanation, long fueling backdoor suspicions. Anthropic says Claude identified those seeds as output from the C generator lrand48, initialized with a Unix timestamp between May 1997 and April 1998, in under 30 minutes. The model noted that lrand48 emits only 31 bits, matching systematically zero high bits in some seeds. Anthropic says this origin makes a deliberate backdoor less likely and is donating the $36,864 bounty to the Internet Security Research Group.

The Decoderupdated Oct 17, 16:59 UTC · 3d agofirst Oct 17, 14:42 UTC · 3d agoResearch 4 sources5

Anthropic’s Claude AI Uncovers Origins of NSA-Provided Cryptographic Keys After 25 Years

Anthropic says Claude reconstructed NIST curve seeds as 1990s lrand48 outputs from Unix timestamps, with no cryptographic break.

Anthropic reported that an internal Claude research model reconstructed how the NSA generated seeds for five NIST elliptic curves in under 30 minutes. The seeds match a 1990s C lrand48 generator initialized with Unix timestamps between May 1997 and April 1998, reproducing P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, and P-521, plus five ANSI X9.62 example seeds. Anthropic calls this historical reconstruction of public parameters, not private keys, and reports no cryptographic break, new attack, or deployment change. The B-163 seed and some base points remain unexplained.

GBHackersupdated Oct 17, 16:59 UTC · 3d agofirst Oct 17, 09:07 UTC · 4d agoResearch 4 sources4

Let’s Encrypt TLS certificate lifetimes to drop from 90 to 64 days starting February 2027

Let’s Encrypt will issue 64-day TLS certificates by default from February 10, 2027, down from 90 days.

The Internet Security Research Group said Let’s Encrypt will issue TLS certificates valid for 64 days by default starting February 10, 2027, down from 90 days. The last 90-day certificate is expected to expire on May 11, 2027, and existing certificates will not be revoked. Staging issuance begins October 14, 2026. Authorization reuse also falls from 30 days to 10 days, ahead of 45-day lifetimes in 2028 and a seven-hour reuse limit.

Help Net SecurityOct 12, 07:23 UTC · 9d agoAdvisory1

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Claude AI Solves 25-Year NSA Cryptography Mystery in Just 30 Minutes

Anthropics' Claude cracks a 25-year-old NSA cryptography mystery in under 30 minutes

Anthropic’s Claude AI Uncovers Origins of NSA-Provided Cryptographic Keys After 25 Years

Let’s Encrypt TLS certificate lifetimes to drop from 90 to 64 days starting February 2027