Möbius-Bridge attack on seven-round AES-128

The problem asks whether the best attack on seven-round AES-128 can be improved without exceeding the standard chosen-plaintext budget. The Möbius-Bridge work reports a faster attack, but not a lower data requirement.

July 2026 Möbius-Bridge attack

The reported attack reduces estimated work from $2^{99}$ to approximately $2^{89.3}$–$2^{91.4}$ AES-equivalent operations, while retaining a requirement of $2^{105}$ chosen-plaintext blocks. Thus it is a time improvement only; the data cost remains dominant, and no practical attack follows. The accompanying work describes computational experiments and formal checking of the core identity. A separate account attributes discovery of the bridge to Mythos Preview, but its role is unclear.

Current status (as of July 2026): The computational work estimate has improved, but no improvement to the $2^{105}$ chosen-plaintext data budget has been reported, so the stated problem remains open.