This is a fun challenge: The NIST elliptic curves that power much of modern cryptography were generated in the late ’90s by hashing seeds provided by the NSA. How were the seeds generated? Rumor has it that they are in turn hashes of English sentences, but the person who picked them, Dr. Jerry Solinas, passed … Read More “Bounty to Recover NIST’s Elliptic Curve Seeds” »
Category: nist
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I just read an article complaining that NIST is taking too long in finalizing its post-quantum-computing cryptography standards. This process has been going on since 2016, and since that time there has been a huge increase in quantum technology and an equally large increase in quantum understanding and interest. Yet seven years later, we have … Read More “You Can’t Rush Post-Quantum-Computing Cryptography Standards” »
NIST is planning a significant update of its Cybersecurity Framework. At this point, it’s asking for feedback and comments to its concept paper. Do the proposed changes reflect the current cybersecurity landscape (standards, risks, and technologies)? Are the proposed changes sufficient and appropriate? Are there other elements that should be considered under each area? Do … Read More “NIST Is Updating Its Cybersecurity Framework” »
Quantum computing is a completely new paradigm for computers. A quantum computer uses quantum properties such as superposition, which allows a qubit (a quantum bit) to be neither 0 nor 1, but something much more complicated. In theory, such a computer can solve problems too complex for conventional computers. Current quantum computers are still toy … Read More “NIST’s Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards” »
SIKE is one of the new algorithms that NIST recently added to the post-quantum cryptography competition. It was just broken, really badly. We present an efficient key recovery attack on the Supersingular Isogeny Diffie-Hellman protocol (SIDH), based on a “glue-and-split” theorem due to Kani. Our attack exploits the existence of a small non-scalar endomorphism on … Read More “SIKE Broken” »
NIST’s post-quantum computing cryptography standard process is entering its final phases. It announced the first four algorithms: For general encryption, used when we access secure websites, NIST has selected the CRYSTALS-Kyber algorithm. Among its advantages are comparatively small encryption keys that two parties can exchange easily, as well as its speed of operation. For digital … Read More “NIST Announces First Four Quantum-Resistant Cryptographic Algorithms” »
Nadiya Kostyuk and Susan Landau wrote an interesting paper: “Dueling Over DUAL_EC_DRBG: The Consequences of Corrupting a Cryptographic Standardization Process“: Abstract: In recent decades, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which develops cryptographic standards for non-national security agencies of the U.S. government, has emerged as the de facto international source for cryptographic … Read More “On the Subversion of NIST by the NSA” »
Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said so in an interview: The NSA already has classified quantum-resistant algorithms of its own that it developed over many years, said Joyce. But it didn’t enter any of its own in the contest. The agency’s mathematicians, however, worked with NIST to support the process, trying … Read More “The NSA Says that There are No Known Flaws in NIST’s Quantum-Resistant Algorithms” »
NIST has posted an update on their post-quantum cryptography program: After spending more than three years examining new approaches to encryption and data protection that could defeat an assault from a quantum computer, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has winnowed the 69 submissions it initially received down to a final group of … Read More “Update on NIST’s Post-Quantum Cryptography Program” »
NIST has completed a study — it was published last year, but I just saw it recently — calculating the costs and benefits of the Advanced Encryption Standard. From the conclusion: The result of performing that operation on the series of cumulated benefits extrapolated for the 169 survey respondents finds that present value of benefits … Read More “Calculating the Benefits of the Advanced Encryption Standard” »