Researchers discover vulnerability in BTC / ETH / Ripple digital signatures

[qwizzie]

https://cryptoslate.com/researchers...y-bitcoin-ethereum-ripple-digital-signatures/

Researchers recently identified vulnerabilities in cryptographic signatures for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple, that allowed attackers to calculate private keys and, consequently, steal any crypto in that wallet. In total, the researchers calculated hundreds of Bitcoin private keys and dozens of Ethereum, Ripple, SSH, and HTTPS private keys using this unique form of cryptanalytic attack.

According to Dr. Heninger and Breitner, the vast majority of cryptocurrency users need not worry:
“The only reason this would happen is if there is some type of bug in the digital signature code.”

The official blockchain clients get their crypto right… since 2016, the Bitcoin client uses deterministic signatures (RFC6979) which completely removes the need for randomness in the process [eliminating the possibility of the kind of attack employed by the researchers]. If you are using non-standard libraries, or if you write your own crypto routines… you should make sure that these use RFC6979. This is even more important on embedded devices or hardware tokens where a good source of randomness might be hard to come by.”

Hopefully Dash uses deterministic signatures (RFC6979).