400 participants and guests, 33 talks, a fantastic party, and plenty of networking – that was Mindshare 2024, held on September 11th and 12th at the Gelsenkirchen Science Park. For all those who want to relive these two great days, and for all those who weren’t there, here is the official Mindshare video:
Mindshare website: https://www.cryptovision.com/en/mindshare2024/
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has officially designated three post-quantum cryptographic algorithms as national standards. These algorithms emerged as the top choices from a years-long global competition, with the winners initially announced in 2022. This decision represents a significant milestone toward ensuring security in the quantum era. Although NIST standards are technically binding only in the United States, they are likely to influence other countries, with key bodies like Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and France’s Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information (ANSSI) already expressing their support.
Along with standardization, NIST has introduced new names for the algorithms. CRYSTALS-Kyber will now be known as “ML-KEM” and assigned the identifier FIPS 203. Similarly, CRYSTALS-Dilithium has been renamed “ML-DSA” (FIPS 204), while SPHINCS+ will be called “SLH-DSA” (FIPS 205).
Eviden Digital Identity welcomes this significant advancement. With its crypto-agile product portfolio, which includes the cryptovision GreenShield email and file encryption solution and the IDnomic PKI solution, the company is well-positioned to support the new cryptographic methods. The three post-quantum algorithms in question have already undergone internal testing since 2022. With the recent standardization, these methods can now be implemented in a future-proof and interoperable manner.
However, the standardization process for post-quantum cryptography is far from complete. FALCON, another winner from the initial algorithm competition, is expected to be officially standardized this year under the name “FN-DSA” with the designation FIPS 206. Additionally, NIST is currently conducting another competition focused exclusively on digital signature methods, with the winners expected to be standardized in the coming years.
NIST web page on post-quantum cryptography: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography
With 30,000 participants, DEF CON in Las Vegas is the largest hacker conference in the world. At this year’s edition (August 8-11), Klaus Schmeh, crypto specialist from Eviden Digital Identity, was represented with two presentations. His presentations, which he gave together with US crypto expert Elonka Dunin, focused on cracking various encryption methods and software programs that can be used for this purpose. Around 500 people attended each of the two presentations and, as always, Klaus Schmeh and his co-speaker’s vivid presentation style was extremely well received.
In the two days before DEF CON, the BSides conference also took place in Las Vegas, which addresses a similar target group, but is less commercially oriented and much smaller with 2000 participants. Klaus Schmeh and Elonka Dunin also gave a presentation at BSides. It was about modern computer algorithms that can be used to solve historically significant encryptions. Around 200 spectators watched the presentation, which featured numerous animations, and were captivated by the fascination of code-breaking.
Website of DEF CON: https://defcon.org/html/defcon-32/dc-32-index.html
Gunnar Preißler (Eviden Mission Critical Systems) and Klaus Schmeh (Eviden Digital Identity) will be presenting a solution for cryptographically securing communications in the rail sector at this year’s German IT Security Congress. This is a hardware component developed by Eviden in collaboration with Swedish supplier Westermo. The solution comprises a robust network device into which a security module in µSD format is integrated. This module performs the cryptographic functions and stores the keys. The security module can be replaced if necessary, without having to replace the entire component. Crypto-agility is thus assured.
The German IT Security Conference is organized by the Federal Office for Information Technology Security (BSI), and will take place this year on May 7 and 8 as an online event. Several thousand participants are expected. Gunnar Preißler and Klaus Schmeh will present on the first day at 11 a.m., just after the BSI keynote speeches. They are already looking forward to welcoming a large number of interested spectators.
German IT Security Congress website: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Service-Navi/Veranstaltungen
More than 2000 participants and over 100 exhibitors from all over the world will be present when ID4Africa opens its doors for the eighth time from May 21 to 24. The venue for this year’s edition is Cape Town in South Africa. ID4Africa is regarded as the most important forum for electronic ID cards and digital identities in Africa – a continent with well over a billion people who need secure digital access to the Internet, public authorities and banks.
As in previous years, Eviden Digital Identity – with the brands cryptovision and Idnomic – will be represented at ID4Africa with a stand (B16). Visitors will be able to find out about Eviden Digital Identity’s Citizen ID product portfolio, which has grown significantly in recent years. In addition to the eID-PKI solutions, this includes the eID middleware cryptovision SCinterface, the Java card framework cryptovision ePasslet Suite and much more. All of these solutions have been used for years in numerous African and other countries and have proven themselves in practice. Find out more at ID4Africa 2024.
ID4Africa 2024 website: https://id4africaevents.com/2024/conference/