Researchers outline faster attack on raw RSA cryptography

Researchers at UC San Diego and Inria Nancy have outlined an attack that could reduce the computing needed to break textbook, or raw, RSA, a form of cryptography still used in some services and security hardware. Tom's Hardware reports that the team tested the method against Thales Luna hardware security modules. An attacker would first have to query a device using the targeted private key billions of times, then analyze its responses. The findings await peer review, and the attack does not apply to the RSA configurations commonly used for website certificates or remote access.