RSA crypto attack poses threat to DRM

Security researchers have developed a new approach to breaking the RSA algorithm that creates new problems for the development of effective rights management software. Cryptoanalysts already known the time taken to make different calculations using the same encryption key might, in theory at least, give attackers code-breaking clues in much the same way electro-magnetic leakage or power fluctuations can be used in so-called "side-channel" attacks on secure systems. The new so-called Branch Prediction Analysis (BPA) attack is a refinement on this approach that makes code breaking feasible on commodity PCs instead of expensive high-performance kit.