Question

Read the excerpt from The Code Book.

Although traffic analysis, tempest attacks, viruses and Trojan horses are all useful techniques for gathering information, cryptanalysts realize that their real goal is to find a way of cracking the RSA cipher, the cornerstone of modern encryption.The RSA cipher is used to protect the most important military, diplomatic, commercial and criminal communications—exactly the messages that intelligence gathering organizations want to decipher. If they are to challenge strong RSA encryption, cryptanalysts will need to make a major theoretical or technological breakthrough.

What is the central idea of this paragraph?

The Trojan horse technique is most effective in data gathering.
The RSA cipher secures much of the world’s important information.
Information gathering will fail without new technology development.
Breaking RSA code is the greatest challenge for cryptanalysts.

Answer 1

"Breaking RSA code is the greatest challenge for cryptanalysts."

Explanation: The paragraph says other techniques help gather information, but cryptanalysts' real goal is cracking RSA, which protects the most important communications and will require a major breakthrough to defeat.