NSA paid $10 million to the RSA to distribute its flawed formula.
The US National Security Agency has secretly arranged a contract worth $10 million with RSA, one of the most influential corporations in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.
Documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, show that the spy agency created and promulgated a flawed formula to generate random numbers in order to create a Å“back door” in encryption products.
RSA received $10 million as the leading distributor of the formula through rolling it in a software tool known as BSafe, which is used to enhance security in personal computers as well as many other products.
The RSA undertook to set the formula as the preferred or default method for number generation in the BSafe software.
According to some security fillings, the sum, though might seem paltry, represented over a third of the revenue the relevant division at RSA earned during the entire previous year.
The contract was signed as a key part of the NSAâ„¢s campaign to embed software that could crack into widely used computer products.
The revelation unveils only one way of several ways the NSA used to enhance surveillance through a systematic erosion of security tools.
Documents leaked by Snowden have brought to light top secret US government spying programs which collect phone records of all American citizens and track the use of US-based Web servers by all people around the world.
The documents also revealed that US spying activities even targeted leaders of some ally countries.
AT/ISH
Source: Press TV