Present-day AI technology could easily decipher the Enigma code from World War II ‘rapidly’, according to specialists, paying tribute to Alan Turing’s legacy.

The Enigma code, a complex cipher, was once considered unbreakable and required tremendous effort from Alan Turing and his team of codebreakers to crack. However, experts assert that modern computing would easily overcome it. While Polish experts broke early versions of Enigma in the 1930s, the Germans later improved security, prompting Turing to invent new machines called “Bombes” to decode enemy messages. By 1943, these machines could decipher two messages per minute. Despite the famous race to break the Enigma code and its portrayal in films, experts claim cracking it would be effortless today due to advancements in technology, especially those pioneered by Turing himself, such as artificial intelligence (AI). The Enigma device used a combination of rotors and a reflector to encrypt messages, making it challenging for humans to exhaustively check all possibilities. However, modern computers and AI models can recreate the logic of bombes and quickly decrypt messages. While Enigma may have fallen to modern computing, other encryption techniques, like RSA, remain robust. Cracking the Enigma code during the war was a significant achievement, as it shortened the conflict by up to two years and saved millions of lives.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/07/todays-ai-can-crack-second-world-war-enigma-code-in-short-order-experts-say