US intelligence agency the NSA subverted a standards process to be able to break encryption more easily, according to leaked documents.
It had written a flaw into a random-number generator that would allow the agency to predict the outcome of the algorithm, the New York Times reported.
The agency had used its influence at a standards body to insert the backdoor, said the report.
The NSA had made no comment at the time of writing.
According to the report, based on a memo leaked by former NSA contactor Edward Snowden, the agency had gained sole control of the authorship of the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm and pushed for its adoption by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) into a 2006 US government standard.
SOURCE: bbc.co.uk
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