Security experts praise Google's tougher encryption

November 24, 2013

Google's faster-than-expected upgrade of all its SSL certificates to an RSA key length of 2048 bits will make cracking connections to the company's services more difficult without affecting performance, experts say. Google said last week the move from 1024-bit RSA, announced in May, was completed a month ahead of schedule and the company will start issuing the longer keys immediately. The upgrade started a couple of weeks before former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sent the nation in shock with revelations of NSA surveillance on Americans in its anti-terrorism program. Nevertheless, Google referred to government spying in announcing the upgrade's completion. "The deprecation of 1024-bit RSA is an industry-wide effort that we're happy to support, particularly light of concerns about overbroad government surveillance and other forms of unwanted intrusion," Dan Dulay, security engineer for Google, said in the company's blog. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066759/security-experts-praise-googles-tougher-encryption.html#tk.rss_all