Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by justinjlynn 3827 days ago
Indeed. Mostly, it's just a question of whether or not the software will support a key of such size. Typically, I would recommend that, unless you've a good reason to use a smaller key (like support concerns), one should use the biggest key one possibly can use at the time the key is generated. Though, if one is doing key rotation as one should be, one can always adjust up as needed as time goes on.
1 comments

Not really, especially in the context of RSA keys, because:

1. RSA is a slow algorithm and gets slower as you increase the key size.

2. Increasing the key size gets diminishing returns on the security margin. Given the performance and compatibility issues, the relatively minor improvement in security once you go beyond a certain key size is not worth it (you should switch to a better algorithm instead).

3. Anything over 4096 (possibly anything over 3072) is overkill anyway - if you could break a 4096-bit RSA key, you've probably found a fundamental weakness in RSA that means you should move to a different algorithm entirely.

all valid points.