Claude Mythos Shatters Post-Quantum Security with HAWK Breakthrough

A powerful AI model called Claude Mythos has broken post-quantum cryptography by finding two previously unknown attacks on crypto algorithms. The target of these attacks is HAWK, a digital signature system designed to be resistant to quantum computers. HAWK was a leading candidate in the U.S. government's post-quantum competition and had been advanced to the third round in May.

Claude Mythos found a symmetry in HAWK's math that no human had used before, making it easier to steal its smallest key. This discovery means that patching HAWK would require roughly doubling its key sizes, which would reduce its advantages over other systems.

The break is significant because post-quantum security remains the biggest concern for crypto. The entire quantum defense effort has been based on the assumption that new cryptography schemes are sound, but Claude Mythos has shown that this may not be the case. However, it's worth noting that the model also defends as well as it attacks, which is why the industry is racing to test it against its own code.