# Cryptanalysis Related Articles

HTX News Center provides the latest articles and in-depth analysis on "Cryptanalysis", covering market trends, project updates, tech developments, and regulatory policies in the crypto industry.

Anthropogenic Artificial Intelligence Breaks HAWK-256 in 60 Hours, Sparking Concerns Over Bitcoin

An unpublished Anthropic AI model, Claude Mythos Preview, broke the post-quantum signature scheme HAWK-256 in about 60 hours at a cost of roughly $100,000. The AI uncovered a previously unknown symmetry in HAWK's design, reducing its security effectiveness by 50% and slashing the required work from ~2^64 to ~2^38 operations. The algorithm, a candidate in NIST's post-quantum cryptography evaluation, was subsequently withdrawn by its creators. This event does not pose an immediate threat to Bitcoin, as Bitcoin never used HAWK-256. Bitcoin currently relies on ECDSA and Schnorr signatures on the secp256k1 elliptic curve, which are unrelated. However, the incident significantly changes a key assumption in Bitcoin's post-quantum roadmap: AI is making the testing and potential breaking of complex cryptographic systems faster and more affordable. The development intensifies the debate on when Bitcoin should begin its transition to quantum-resistant cryptography. Proposals like BIP-360 (introducing P2QRH outputs using NIST-approved ML-DSA/SLH-DSA) and BIP-361 (phasing out ECDSA) are already in motion, having bypassed HAWK. The core challenge is whether AI-assisted cryptanalysis could compromise these intended replacement algorithms before the network completes its migration. Analysts warn that AI is accelerating cryptanalysis, compressing security timelines. Combined with quantum computing advances, this underscores the urgency for Bitcoin's transition. Reports estimate roughly 6.7 million BTC (worth nearly $600 billion) could be vulnerable to a sufficiently advanced quantum computer, with a non-trivial probability of such a machine existing by 2035. The primary issue is no longer solely hardware development but whether the network can execute a successful protocol upgrade in time.

cryptonews.ru1h ago

Anthropogenic Artificial Intelligence Breaks HAWK-256 in 60 Hours, Sparking Concerns Over Bitcoin

cryptonews.ru1h ago

Bitcoin Panicking? Mythos Cracks Post-Quantum Cryptography Algorithm in 60 Hours

Claude Mythos Preview, a new AI system from Anthropic, has made significant breakthroughs in fundamental cryptanalysis, targeting the mathematics underlying algorithms rather than just implementation bugs. Its first target was HAWK, a candidate in the NIST post-quantum signature standardization process. Mythos identified a previously unexploited symmetry (a nontrivial automorphism) in the lattice structure of HAWK, effectively halving its effective key strength. It achieved this feat in just 60 hours, a task that had eluded two years of human expert review. Crucially, the human operator was not a lattice cryptography expert, primarily managing the project while AI agents debated and discovered the attack path. Its second, more dramatic achievement was against a simplified 7-round version of AES-128, the world's most widely used symmetric encryption algorithm. Initially reluctant, stating the task was "impossible," Mythos was prompted to "try novel ideas." It then autonomously rewrote its own agent framework and proceeded to discover a novel attack method it named "Möbius Bridge." This technique bypasses a critical 256-guess step in previous "meet-in-the-middle" attacks, resulting in a speedup of 200-800 times. Both findings are currently "harmless"—HAWK is not deployed, and full AES-128 remains secure. However, the process reveals a profound shift. Mythos completed the AES discovery in about a week, while human researchers spent nearly a month verifying its correctness. This highlights a new bottleneck: the rate of AI-driven discovery may soon outpace human capacity for verification. The research concludes with a pressing, unanswered question: what happens when such an AI finds a critical flaw in a widely deployed, real-world cryptosystem?

marsbit22h ago

Bitcoin Panicking? Mythos Cracks Post-Quantum Cryptography Algorithm in 60 Hours

marsbit22h ago

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