Analysis and Verification of Post-quantum Cryptography

The current advances in quantum computing are expected to enable powerful real-life applications. Unfortunately, once quantum computers become efficient enough, our most important cryptographic public-key primitives can be broken via Shor’s algorithm. Therefore, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has started a competition for quantum secure key encapsulation mechanisms. The winners of the NIST competition are tailored to provide black-box security, but their secure deployment also requires resistance against side-channel attacks.

The focus of this project is in improving the cryptanalysis of lattice-based post-quantum primitives, combining foundational research with practical evaluation. In particular, we identify useful features of the underlying mathematical structures that make them resistant against attacks, and then set out to find potential candidates satisfying these properties.