Google DeepMind’s AI Agents Make 1024-Bit RSA Keys Cheaper to Attack

Google DeepMind, working with cryptographers from UC San Diego and Inria, says AI agents working under human supervision have found two ways to cut the cost of attacking obsolete 1024-bit RSA cryptosystems, including re-running a signature forgery attack in 391 CPU core-years instead of 1,380 and an approach that could make factoring each additional RSA-1024 key roughly 30 times cheaper. DeepMind stresses the results affect only legacy RSA-1024 systems and that modern protocols using 2048-bit or larger keys remain secure.