On 24 August 2023, U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Commerce published draft standards for three of four algorithms it selected in 2022 to withstand attack by quantum computers. They expect to release a draft for the last one in about a year. These proposed standards, derived from different submissions in the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardisation project, specify key establishment and digital signature schemes to prevent the threat to the security of current standards.
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Reasons for the standardisation
At the present, sensitive electronic information, including email, bank transfers and digital signatures, commonly use the public-key encryption techniques. The foundation of these cryptosystems is the maths problems – including integer factorization and discrete logarithms (both over finite fields and elliptic curves), that a conventional computer cannot solve. Despite the exclusivity to access to quantum computers, the large-scale quantum computers risk solving these problems and defeating our current encryption. In 2017, NIST launched a public process to select quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms for standardisation. In 2022, it opted and began the process of standardising four algorithms CRYSTALS–KYBER, along with three digital signature schemes: CRYSTALS–Dilithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+. Ultimately, they will make these mathematical tools available for the world to integrate them into encryption infrastructures.
Publications of Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)
The publications of each algorithm selected shall provide the details helping users implement the algorithms in their own systems. For example, they shall include a full technical specification of the algorithms and notes for effective implementation with an additional guidance forthcoming next.
- CRYSTALS-Kyber, designed for general encryption purposes such as creating secure websites, is covered in FIPS 203.
- CRYSTALS-Dilithium, designed to protect the digital signatures we use when signing documents remotely, is covered in FIPS 204.
- SPHINCS+, also designed for digital signatures, is covered in FIPS 205.
- FALCON, also designed for digital signatures, is slated to receive its own draft FIPS in 2024.
Eventually, the completed post-quantum encryption standards will replace the standards and guidelines of three NIST cryptographic standards which are the most vulnerable to quantum computers: FIPS 186-5, NIST SP 800-56A and NIST SP 800-56B.
Additional algorithms standards
Furthermore, NIST selected a second set of algorithms for ongoing evaluation, intended to augment the first set. They plan to publish their draft standards next year for any of these algorithms for standardisation. They are designed for general encryption under the foundation of different maths problems than CRYSTALS-Kyber. As a backup plan, these additional algorithms will offer alternative defence methods if one of the initially selected show a weakness in the future.
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