On September 3, 2026, researcher Eric Lu from Cognition successfully factored the 862-bit RSA-260 challenge key. The operation utilized GPU-accelerated general number field sieve methods and incurred a cost of approximately $400,000.
This achievement highlights the vulnerability of older RSA key sizes. Current projections estimate that factoring an RSA-1024 key would cost around $30 million, a sum accessible to nation-states and well-funded intelligence agencies.
The industry standard RSA-2048 remains secure against current classical and known quantum attacks. However, the threat posed by Shor’s algorithm on quantum hardware makes the transition to post-quantum cryptographic standards an increasing necessity.
For the cryptocurrency sector, the immediate impact is minimal as most blockchain networks rely on elliptic curve cryptography rather than RSA. RSA usage in the industry is primarily limited to transport layer security and legacy enterprise systems.
Security teams are advised to treat the $400,000 cost of the RSA-260 attack as a benchmark for threat modeling. Organizations utilizing RSA keys smaller than 2048 bits are encouraged to prioritize migration to more secure standards.
