H4rdw4re to crack GSM encryption

Security firm H4RDW4RE from California aims to crack the A5/1 encryption standard that is used to secure GSM traffic from eavesdropping. As it stands right now, the A5/1 cipher is based on a 64-bit key, which means each handset comes with a 64-bit secret key that is known by the connected GSM network. Each call initiated over the GSM network will rely on the secret key to generate a session key and encrypt said phone call. H4RDW4RE aims to crack this session key through the use of a compressed and custom version of the A5/1’s 128-petabyte code book, which has been compressed to an impressive 2 or 3TB of data.