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Avast has released a decryptor for variants of the Hades ransomware known as ‘MafiaWare666’, ‘Jcrypt’, ‘RIP Lmao’, and ‘BrutusptCrypt,’ allowing victims to recover their files for free.

The security company says it discovered a flaw in the encryption scheme of the Hades strain, allowing some of the variants to be unlocked. However, this may not apply to newer or unknown samples that use a different encryption system.

Utilizing Avast’s tool, victims of the supported ransomware variants can decrypt and access their files again without paying a ransom to the attackers, which ranges between $50 and $300. However, ransom demands reached tens of thousands in some cases.

The rise of quantum computing and its implications for current encryption standards are well known. But why exactly should quantum computers be especially adept at breaking encryption? The answer is a nifty bit of mathematical juggling called Shor’s algorithm. The question that still leaves is: What is it that this algorithm does that causes quantum computers to be so much better at cracking encryption? In this video, YouTuber minutephysics explains it in his traditional whiteboard cartoon style.

“Quantum computation has the potential to make it super, super easy to access encrypted data — like having a lightsaber you can use to cut through any lock or barrier, no matter how strong,” minutephysics says. “Shor’s algorithm is that lightsaber.”

Continue reading “How Quantum Physics Leads to Decrypting Common Algorithms” »

Researchers have developed a metasurface device that can display three types of images depending on the illumination light. The three-channel device could be used as an anticounterfeiting measure or offer a new way to securely deliver encrypted information.

“Metasurfaces are artificial materials with tiny nanostructures that can be used to manipulate light,” said research team member Qi Dai from Wuhan University in China. “In this work, we exploited both the size and orientation of the nanostructures to design a metasurface with three working modes.”

The researchers describe the new device in Optics Express. They also showed that depending on the light used, the metasurface would generate a holographic image or a structural-color nanoprinting image with or without polarization-dependent watermarks.

By helping scientists control a strange but useful phenomenon of quantum mechanics, an ultrathin invention could make future computing, sensing, and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful. The device is described in new research that was recently published in the journal Science.

This device could replace a roomful of equipment to link photons in a bizarre quantum effect called entanglement, according to scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. It is a kind of nano-engineered material called a metasurface and paves the way for entangling photons in complex ways that have not been possible with compact technologies.

When photons are said to be entangled, it means they are linked in such a way that actions on one affect the other, no matter where or how far apart the photons are in the universe. It is a spooky effect of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that govern particles and other very tiny things.

Ralph C. Merkle is a computer scientist. He is one of the inventors of public key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker of cryonics.

Videos in the talk: David Eagleman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5tZtYns6kE molecular nanotechnology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqyZ9bFl_qg.

Filmed 2017/04/30

When quantum computers become powerful enough, they could theoretically crack the encryption algorithms that keep us safe. The race is on to find new ones.

A phenomenon that often accompanies technological innovations involves how they tend to become smaller with their improvement over time. From televisions and communication devices like telephones to computers and microchip components, many of the technologies we use every day occupy a fraction of the space in our homes and offices that their predecessors did just decades ago.

In keeping with this trend, it is no surprise that a new tech developed by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, may soon replace cumbersome technologies than once required an entire room to operate, thanks to an ultrathin invention that could change the future of computation, encryption, and a host of other technologies.

At the heart of the invention and its function is a peculiar phenomenon that has perplexed physicists for decades, known as quantum entanglement.

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute have developed a way to produce a web of quantum entangled photons using a far more simple setup than usual. The key is a precisely patterned surface 100 times thinner than paper, which could replace a roomful of optical equipment.

Quantum entanglement is the bizarre-sounding phenomenon where two particles can become so entwined together that manipulating one will instantly affect its partner, no matter how far apart they may be. This forms the basis for emerging technologies like quantum computing and quantum encryption.

The problem is, generating entangled groups of photons can be tricky, and is usually done with large arrays of lasers, specialized crystals, and other optical equipment. But the Sandia and Max Planck team has a much simpler setup – a metasurface.

A growing number of ransomware groups are adopting a new tactic that helps them encrypt their victims’ systems faster while reducing the chances of being detected and stopped.

This tactic is called intermittent encryption, and it consists of encrypting only parts of the targeted files’ content, which would still render the data unrecoverable without using a valid decryptor+key.

For example, by skipping every other 16 bytes of a file, the encryption process takes almost half of the time required for full encryption but still locks the contents for good.