Cloud of suspicion lifted from NIST curves

Researchers at Anthropic have published findings that lift suspicion from the elliptic curves NIST standardized for cryptography in 2000, whose seed values were supplied by the NSA. Cryptographers had long suspected the agency may have embedded backdoors in the curves, a concern fueled by the NSA's documented insertion of a backdoor into the Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator. The work addresses whether the NIST curves themselves carry a hidden weakness.

NIST published a set of elliptic curves for cryptography in 2000. The seeds for the curves were supplied by the NSA, and cryptographers suspected the agency may have installed backdoors in the curves. And not without reason: the NSA did insert a backdoor in the Dual EC DRBG random number generator. Two days ago researchers at Anthropic … The post