by Klaus Schmeh | Sep 5, 2024 | Cryptography
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
by Klaus Schmeh | Jul 13, 2022 | Cryptography
Do you know CRYSTALS-Kyber? If not, you will certainly get to know this post-quantum encryption method soon, because it was declared one of four winners from an original 69 candidates by the US standardization authority NIST. The other three winners in this multi-year competition are the CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON and SPHINCS+ post-quantum signature methods.
The background is that the asymmetric crypto methods used so far, including RSA and Diffie-Hellman, can be broken with quantum computers. Although usable quantum computers have so far only existed in science fiction, NIST wanted to respond to the looming threat at an early stage and therefore organized a competition in which methods considered to be quantum-safe were to be evaluated and some standardized at the end.
Experience shows that other standardization bodies around the world are adopting NIST’s crypto standards. The announcement of the first four winners – with a few more to follow – is therefore tantamount to a go-ahead, because after years of uncertainty, it is now foreseeable which post-quantum methods will prevail in practice. Crypto vendors around the world will now have to implement these methods, universities will have to change their curricula.
It won’t be easy for crypto enthusiasts, however, because there is higher mathematics behind post-quantum cryptography. While SPHINX+ is based on the comparatively easy-to-understand principle of one-way functions, CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium and FALCON are mathematically much more sophisticated. All three belong to the so-called lattice methods and therefore require arithmetic operations in multi-hundred-dimensional lattices – not exactly what the average person learned in school.
Of course, the new post-quantum methods are now also on the roadmap at cryptovision and its parent company Atos. Cryptovision will also continue to dedicate itself to the task of explaining post-quantum cryptography clearly, be it through the popular cryptovision post-quantum whitepaper or comic-style conference presentations. The age of post-quantum cryptography can come, cryptovision and Atos are prepared.
NIST website about the competition: https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography
