Deciphering the MD5 cipher algorithm used in the United States, the computation amount reaches the 8th power of 2. Even with the fastest supercomputer, it will take more than 1 million years to crack it. But Wang Xiaoyun and her research team can find effective results in a few minutes with ordinary personal computers.
SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm, designed by American national institute of standards and technology and American national security agency, was recommended to American government and financial system as early as 1994, and it is the most widely used cryptographic algorithm in American government at present.
In early p>25, Wang Xiaoyun and her research team announced that they had successfully cracked the email password. "collapse! The Crisis of Cryptography, New Scientist magazine in the United States summed up Wang Xiaoyun's landmark achievements with such a shocking title. Because of the appearance of Wang Xiaoyun, the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced that the US government will not use SHA-1 in five years, and will replace it with a more advanced new algorithm. Well-known companies such as Microsoft, Sun and Atmel have also published their own countermeasures.
Wang Xiaoyun is short, with short hair and gold-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. As soon as I spoke, my accent had a simple Shandong flavor. For 1 years, she walked on the campus of Shandong University, and few people could recognize her. Before the reporter interviewed, she had not been interviewed for half a year. Two years ago, she volunteered to speak at the International Cryptography Conference held in Santa Barbara, California, USA, and announced that she and her research team had successfully cracked the four internationally famous cryptographic algorithms MD5, HAVAL-128, MD4 and RIPEMD.
when she announced the third achievement, the meeting was already full of applause. After her speech, the applause broke out in the venue for a long time. For this day, Wang Xiaoyun has been working silently for 1 years. A few months later, she deciphered the more difficult SHA-1. Wang Xiaoyun is engaged in the research of Hash function.
MD5 and SHA-1, the two most widely used cryptographic algorithms in the world, are the two most important Hash functions. MD5 was designed in 1991 by an internationally renowned cryptographer, Professor Ronald L. Rivest of MIT. Behind SHA-1 is the background of the National Security Agency.
The two algorithms are the key to international electronic signature and many other cryptographic applications. At the beginning of Wang Xiaoyun's research on Hash function, although some cryptographers tried to decipher it, there was no breakthrough. Therefore, the study of Hash function has become the most hopeless field in the minds of many cryptographers in the past 15 years.
But Wang Xiaoyun doesn't believe it. She wants to know, is the Hash function really as unbreakable as it looks? Wang Xiaoyun's method of cracking passwords is different from others, but for Wang Xiaoyun, computers are only an auxiliary means to crack passwords by themselves. More often, she calculates by hand. Manually design the cracking path.
Yao Qizhi, winner of Turing Prize, commented on her: "She has an intuition and can pick out the best path from thousands of possibilities." When Wang Xiaoyun led her team to end MD5, The Washington Times reported that the new decoding technology developed by China decoding experts could "attack the White House".
Wang Xiaoyun said that in the public's understanding, cryptographers are very much like hackers, but our work is obviously different from hackers. She said: "It is malicious for hackers to crack passwords, hoping to gain benefits by stealing information protected by password algorithms. The job of cryptanalysis scientists is to evaluate the security of a cryptographic algorithm and find a more secure cryptographic algorithm. "
Wang Xiaoyun's work is more accurately called "calculating openly" than the master in the TV series "plot against". Wang Xiaoyun said: "Unlike the covert attacks by hackers, cryptanalysts all over the world work on an open platform. The functional method of cryptographic algorithm design and the theory of cryptographic analysis are all open. "
She said, "On the day when SHA-1 was cracked, I went out for a meal. I am a little excited because I am the first person to know a world-class secret. " People who have seen the movie "U-571" must remember that in order to obtain the password used by German submarines, the US military used a submarine disguised as a German submarine to steal the decoder and codebook from an injured German submarine.
after p>1 years of cracking the world's five famous passwords, many people will think that this scientist must be a very hard-working person. But unexpectedly, Wang Xiaoyun said, "Those 1 years were ten years when I felt very relaxed." During the 1 years of cracking the code, Wang Xiaoyun gave birth to a daughter and raised a balcony full of flowers.
Wang Xiaoyun said, "My scientific research is carried out by holding children, doing housework and raising flowers." She said, "During that time, when I was holding my child and doing housework, the possible cracking paths of various passwords hovered in my mind, and I would immediately record them in my computer as soon as I had an idea. Up to now, I still miss the life of those 1 years. At that time, I would work hard for a period of time. If I felt tired, I would take a break. "
once, Wang Xiaoyun took a taxi by herself. She sent the taxi number to a friend with her mobile phone. My friend thought she was going to pick up the station by herself. She searched the flights and train numbers of the day but couldn't find the number. Finally, she realized that it was a taxi number. It is a "clue" left by Wang Xiaoyun's fear of encountering bad people. Wang Xiaoyun, the person who cultivated the most wonderful fruits of cryptography, is famous all over the world, but when the reporter came to her for an interview during the short break between meetings, she was still shy and turned red. ?
When the reporter asked her how to spend the 1 million yuan bonus, she said that she had not thought about it specifically, but "some of it will be invested in scientific research". Although the interview didn't go on because of the time and place, the reporter was already familiar with the information about this China female scientist who subverted two international cryptographic algorithms.
Wang Xiaoyun, born in August, 1966, received his Ph.D. in number theory and cryptography from Shandong University in 1993 and then stayed on as a teacher. In 24 and 25, the research team led by her cracked MD5 and SHA-1 cryptographic algorithms. For the first time in more than ten years, the international cryptology community was shocked by the successful cracking of cryptographic algorithms and standards widely used in the world. Eurocrypto and Crypto, the two most authoritative publications in the field of cryptography, awarded the "Best Paper Award of 25" to this China woman.
In June, 25, Professor Wang Xiaoyun was appointed as Professor Yang Zhenning of Tsinghua University and distinguished professor of Tsinghua University Yangtze River, and became a candidate of the 6th China Young Scientist Award that year.
MD5 and SHA-1 are two commonly used cryptographic algorithms in the world, and they are also key technologies in international electronic signature and many cryptographic applications, which are widely used in e-commerce fields such as finance and securities. Because there are no two identical fingerprints in the world, handprints become the only sign to identify people. In the network security protocol, using Hash function to process electronic signature can produce a unique "fingerprint" of electronic documents and form a "digital fingerprint".
experts used to think that even if it takes hundreds or thousands of years to call computers all over the world, it is difficult to find two identical "digital handprints", thus ensuring that digital signatures cannot be forged. The method developed by Wang Xiaoyun's team can quickly find these same digital handprints, which greatly exceeded the imagination of international colleagues. Some experts commented that this is the most wonderful result in the field of cryptography in recent years.
Extended information:
Professor Wang Xiaoyun, born in Zhucheng, Shandong Province in 1966, is a cryptographer, Professor Tsinghua University and an academician of China Academy of Sciences.
From p>1983 to 1993, I studied in the Mathematics Department of Shandong University. After graduation in 1993, he stayed in school to teach; In 25, he was supported by the Outstanding Youth Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and was selected into the "Hundred Talents Program" of Tsinghua University in the same year; In June 25, he was hired as "Professor Yang Zhenning" in the Advanced Research Center of Tsinghua University. In May, 217, he won the National Innovation Award. In August, he was co-opted as a preliminary candidate for the 217 China Academy of Sciences. In November, he was elected as an academician of the China Academy of Sciences.
Wang Xiaoyun is mainly engaged in the research of cryptographic theory and related mathematical problems.
Wang Xiaoyun put forward the collision attack theory of cryptographic hash function, namely modular differential bit analysis method, which improved the probability of cracking five international common hash function algorithms including MD5 and SHA-1. The sub-key recovery attack of a series of message authentication codes MD5-MAC and the distinguishing attack of HMAC-MD5 are given. A heuristic algorithm for solving the shortest vector of lattice, double screening method, is proposed. China hash function standard SM3 is designed, which is widely used in financial, state grid, transportation and other important national economic fields.
On January 29th, 218, at the first meeting of the 17th People's Congress of Tianjin, Wang Xiaoyun was elected as the representative of Tianjin to the 13th National People's Congress. ?
Now he is "distinguished professor, a Changjiang Scholar" in Tsinghua University. Member of the 15th Central Committee of china zhi gong party. Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress.
On April 14th, 218, CCTV's "Let's Talk" and "Protect Happiness" series programs were specially planned for the National Security Education Day-Professor Tsinghua University and cryptographer Wang Xiaoyun gave a talk: the familiar and unfamiliar "guardian"-password!
Compared with 15 years ago, Wang Xiaoyun today may be less young and unrestrained, and more burdened and responsible. But in any case, it is doomed that her next five years will be a long-distance running full of risks and fun.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Wang Xiaoyun.