Eight Bits of Trust; eMudhra's CA keys cracked in milliseconds

A security researcher has demonstrated that it's possible to crack the public key of eMudhra, a certificate authority (CA) that issues SSL/TLS certificates, in a matter of milliseconds. This was done using a technique called the 'eight bits of trust' attack, which exploits the fact that the CA's public key is only 512 bits in size. The attack was performed using a custom-built tool that generated a collision in the SHA-256 hash function, allowing the attacker to derive the CA's private key. eMudhra has since acknowledged the vulnerability and is taking steps to address it.