Hardware assisted post-quantum cryptography for embedded system devices

公钥密码是数字通信安全的基础。现有的PKC标准依赖于整数分解（RSA）或计算离散曲线（Diffie-Hellman/椭圆曲线）的难度。然而，这些“硬问题”很容易被新兴的量子计算机打破，造成迫在眉睫的安全威胁。随着量子计算机有望在未来10年内成为商业现实，迫切需要新的抗量子PKC标准。为了减少计算需求，提高功率效率和对侧信道攻击的弹性，密码系统经常在硬件辅助下实现。这种硬件辅助的加密对于以下方面是必不可少的：（资源受限的）嵌入式系统设备，应用领域如智能/ID卡、移动的通信、运输、银行、付费电视、物联网设备、可穿戴设备、工业4.0。这些标准利用与现有RSA/EC标准大不相同的数学/算法运算，对于现有RSA/EC标准，几乎没有工程传统。PQC的主要类别是基于格、码、多变量多项式、Islam和哈希的算法。PQShield正在动员世界级的团队来应对这一挑战，并已经在许多PQC算法类型上取得了重要突破，包括两个在NIST PQC标准化过程中进入半决赛的候选算法。

Public key cryptography (PKC) is fundamental to the security of digital communications. Existing PKC standards rely on the difficulty of factoring integers (RSA) or calculating discrete logarithms (Diffie-Hellman/Elliptic-Curves). However, these 'hard problems' are easily broken by emerging quantum computers, creating an imminent security threat. With quantum computers expected to become a commercial reality within the next 10-years, there is an urgent need for new quantum-resistant PKC standards.To reduce computational demand and to improve power efficiency and resilience to side-channel attacks, cryptography systems are frequently implemented with hardware assistance. Such hardware assisted cryptography is essential for (resource constrained) embedded system devices, in application areas such as smart/ID cards, mobile communications, transport, banking, Pay-Tv, IoT devices, wearables, Industry 4.0\.Whilst new 'post-quantum cryptography' schemes have been proposed that are difficult for quantum computers to solve; these utilise mathematical/algorithmic operations vastly different from existing RSA/EC standards for which little engineering tradition exists. Major classes of PQC are lattice-, code-, multivariate polynomial-, isogeny-, and hash-based algorithms.PQShield are mobilising a world-class team to address this challenge and have already achieved important breakthroughs for many PQC algorithm types, including two semi-finalist candidates at the NIST standardisation process of PQC.