The first four standardised protocols for post-quantum cryptography have been released, providing the foundation for the creation of "future-proof" apps and web services.
Last Monday, the US federal government's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a quartet of recommended protocols as part of a continuing standardisation process.
The chosen encryption algorithms will be included in NIST's post-quantum cryptography standard, which is scheduled to be completed within the next two years.
Four more algorithms are currently being considered for inclusion in the standard.
According to NIST, for most use cases, two basic algorithms should be implemented: CRYSTALS-KYBER (key-establishment) and CRYSTALS-Dilithium (digital signatures).
In the event that one or more approaches prove insecure, more than one algorithm for each use case is being sought as a backup.
NIST recommends CRYSTALS-Dilithium as the principal method for digital signatures, with FALCON for applications that require smaller signatures than Dilithium can offer. SPHINCS, a third algorithm, is slower than the other two but was approved since it is based on a distinct mathematical process and so gives a possibility to increase variety. Dustin Moody of NIST discussed why another round of selection was required.
“Of the four algorithms we selected, one is for encryption and three are for digital signatures,” Moody told The Daily Swig.
“Of the four algorithms that we will continue to study in the fourth round, all four are encryption algorithms. The primary motivation for this is to find a non-lattice-based signature scheme which is suitable for general purpose use to be a backup for our lattice-based signature algorithms we are standardizing (Dilithium and Falcon),” Moody added.
He continued: “Our current NIST public-key standards cover encryption and signatures. So that is what our standardization process was targeted for – to replace the vulnerable cryptosystems in those standards. Other functionalities may be considered in the future.”
The ongoing quest for next-generation cryptographic systems is required since present encryption protocols, such as RSA, rely on solving mathematical problems that are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful conventional computers.
Sufficiently powerful quantum computers, which operate on a fundamentally different paradigm than today's PCs or servers, may be capable of cracking today's public key encryption techniques. Increasing the key length alone will not suffice to counter this possible danger, necessitating the creation of post-quantum cryptography methods.
Decrypt later, store now
Despite the fact that the present generation of quantum computers is mostly experimental and hampered by engineering hurdles, attackers may be planning for their future availability using "store-now-decrypt-later" assaults.If such attacks are effective, a rising volume of normally encrypted financial, government, commercial, and health-related data will be vulnerable to attack by suitably powerful quantum computers.
Quantum computers handle computational tasks by relying on the features of quantum states, such as superposition, interference, or entanglement, rather than the basic binary states (0 or 1) of traditional computers.
When paired with quantum algorithms, the technology might solve some mathematical problems, such as integer factorization, in a manageably short period, posing a danger to current encryption systems that rely on the current intractability of such issues.
Quantum-resistant algorithms are based on arithmetic problems that both traditional and quantum computers should struggle to solve.
