Scientists crack cryptography

Scientists working on computer security techniques have discovered a new way to strengthen silicone chips against the risk of failure or attack. According to the BBC, technicians at the University of Michigan have found a way to crack 'public key' encryption, the main type of security system used by sensitive websites. The research team varied the voltage of power systems connected to the device they were trying to break into, causing temporary transistor failures. They were then able to exploit the computational errors that resulted. They now aim to use the knowledge to harden future systems against voltage variation attacks and develop techniques to 'salt' vulnerable code with fake values.