Report: NSA paid RSA to make flawed crypto algorithm the default
Security company RSA was paid $10 million to use the flawed Dual_EC_DRBG pseudorandom number generating algorithm as the default algorithm in its BSafe crypto library, according to sources speaking to Reuters.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands one day after Reuters broke that RSA took $10 million from the NSA to make the flawed Dual_EC_DRBG pseudorandom generator the default in its BSafe toolkit — part, per the reporting, of a broader agency campaign to embed crackable encryption in widely used products. The story has travelled unusually fast: Reuters, The Verge, PC Magazine, Techdirt, The Register and others all picked it up within a day.
The timing compounds an already bruising December for the NSA, following a confirmed constitutional challenge to its bulk telephone metadata program reported mid-month. RSA sits at the center of the trust economy — a security vendor whose brand rests on being the safe choice — so a payment-for-weakness allegation strikes at the asset it sells.
First-order effects
- Enterprises shipping products built on RSA's BSafe library inherit Dual_EC_DRBG as the default random-number source and face immediate pressure to audit configurations and switch defaults, since a backdoored generator undermines every key derived from it.
- RSA's core commercial proposition — trusted cryptography — takes a direct reputational hit, forcing the company to answer for a deal with the very adversary its customers buy protection against.
Second-order effects
- Competing security vendors will market non-NSA-linked alternatives, turning algorithm provenance into a sales differentiator and pushing buyers to favor open implementations over proprietary defaults.
- US-headquartered security firms generally face tougher procurement questions abroad, as foreign customers reassess whether American-made crypto tooling carries hidden obligations.
Third-order effects
- If payments-for-defaults proves to be standard practice, the Snowden-era pattern points toward a structural split in the crypto industry between verifiable open standards and vendor-bundled defaults, with NIST-endorsed algorithms needing independent review to retain international credibility.
- Regulators and standards bodies outside the US gain leverage to argue that surveillance-driven weakening of commercial software is a systemic risk, not an isolated incident.
The trend: The NSA's alleged purchase of a flawed default inside a mainstream crypto library is a data point in the post-Snowden shift of the security industry away from opaque, government-influenced standards toward independently verifiable cryptography.