Elliptic Curves Tested in Lausanne

Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have cracked a 112 bit encryption based on elliptic curves (more exactly secp112r1) using 700 machine-months of the Sony playstation PS3.

Experiments of this sort are important to judge the security of real-life applications: At the moment elliptic curves betwen 160 and 256 bits are used. As the number of processor cycles required for a brute-force-attack grows exponentially with the number of bits there is quite some headroom left.