The government has contended that it is not possible to build a computer that can break DES without enormous expense. The EFF DES Cracker, as the supercomputer is called, was designed to break 56-bit encrypted code in record time. The U.S. government restricts exportation of technology beyond 40 bits and the researchers intended to show that even encryption that is stronger than that can be busted. Such security issues are likely to become greater as the cost of building supercomputers capable of breaking DES become less expensive, the researchers said. It took Gilmore and Paul Kocher of Cryptography Research Inc. just 56 hours to figure out the key needed to read scrambled data, trying about a quarter of all of the possible key combinations.
Financial institutions tend to rely on the standard as does the satellite communications industry.
Those who use DES have long been aware of its potential to be cracked because they run risk assessments, the researchers said. The team that built the DES-busting machine has not heard from the government regarding the successful unscrambling. Background document about the EFF DES Cracker . Some companies are hoping you would. Experts Exchange Get answers to your networking questions.