Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI finds cryptographic flaws in post-quantum HAWK signature scheme and AES cipher in 60 hours, cutting HAWK's key strength in half

Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI finds cryptographic flaws in post-quantum HAWK signature scheme and AES cipher in 60 hours, cutting HAWK's key strength in half—no production systems affected.

Discovering cryptographic weaknesses with Claude

SummaryUsing Claude Mythos Preview, researchers at Anthropic have discovered improved ways to attack cryptographic algorithms (the mathematical methods used to keep online data private). The first attack significantly weakens HAWK, a digital signature scheme that was built for a post-quantum world. The second identifies a new way to attack round-reduced AES, the most widely used symmetric cipher. These are substantial research advances, but they do not currently affect any production systems. Th...