Anthropic: Claude finds weaknesses in cryptographic algorithms, posing a theoretical threat to post-quantum security

Deep Tide TechFlow news: On July 29, Anthropic said that Claude Mythos Preview found an improved attack method against the post-quantum signature candidate scheme HAWK in cryptographic research, reducing the effective key strength of HAWK-256 from 26426 to 23823, thereby lowering the theoretical cracking cost. At the same time, Claude also proposed improved attacks against a 7-round Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), with a speed improvement of 200 to 800 times compared with existing methods.

As of now, HAWK has not entered real-world deployment, and the related research will not affect the security of existing production systems. Anthropic said the result was achieved by the model on its own, after conducting literature review, mathematical reasoning, and experimental verification under limited guidance from cryptographers.