Security of E-commerce threatened by 512-bit number factorization

On August 22 1999, a team of scientists from six different countries, led by Herman te Riele of CWI (Amsterdam), found the prime factors of a 512-bit number, whose size models 95% of the keys used for protection of electronic commerce on the Internet. This result shows, much earlier than expected at the start of E-commerce, that the popular key-size of 512 bits is no longer safe against even a moderately powerful attacker. The amount of money protected by 512-bit keys is immense. Many billions of dollars per day are flowing through financial institutions such as banks and stock exchanges. http://www.cwi.nl/~kik/persb-UK.html