The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has chosen the first group of encryption tools designed to withstand the attack of a future quantum computer, which could potentially crack the security used to protect privacy in the digital systems we rely on today.

Lo Ducas, senior researcher in the cryptology group at the Netherlands Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI),the national research institute for mathematics and computer science, is involved in the two most important algorithms of the upcoming NIST portfolio one for public key encryption and one for digital signatures.

According to Ducas, who is also a professor at the University of Leiden, these new standards are inevitable because there is nervousness about the arrival of quantum computing. We know quantum computing will not be rife tomorrow, but this standardisation procedure and its deployment take time, he said. Obviously there is certain sensitive information that needs to be secure and confidential not just at present, but in the future as well. Take state secrets, for instance.

Cyber security experts have warned that hackers are stealing data now to decrypt it in the future, when quantum computing could render modern encryption methods obsolete. A report published by NIST in April 2016 cited experts that acknowledged the possibility of quantum technology rendering the commonly used RSA algorithm insecure by 2030. We need to be ready for that, said Ducas. This means we have to anticipate now.

The announcement of the chosen tools follows a six-year effort managed by NIST, which started in 2016 with a call for the worlds cryptographers to devise and then vet encryption methods that could resist an attack from a future quantum computer. A total of 23 signature schemes and 59 encryption schemes were submitted, of which 69 were deemed complete and proper. The NIST competition consists of four rounds, during which some schemes are discarded and others studied more closely.

In July this year, NIST announced the first group of winners from its competition, which included Crystals-Kyber and Crystals-Dilithium, both developed by an international collaboration in which CWI participated. Other team members are ENS Lyon, Radboud University, Ruhr University Bochum, University of Waterloo, IBM, NXP, ARM, SRI International, Florida Atlantic University and Tsinghua University.

It was a rather big team, but that was the key aspect, said Ducas. It consisted of both industrial and academic people, and all their knowledge was necessary to develop the algorithms we have. Take NXP, for example they build chips and already use cryptology to embed in those chips. We needed their knowledge for the design, because it is essential that what we develop not only fits into devices like smartphones and laptops, but also in other places where chips are being used, like in the automotive industry. Fitting cryptology can be a big challenge.

Apart from the two algorithms in which CWI was involved, two further algorithms for signatures were selected by NIST Falcon and Sphincs+. Sphincs+ also was partially conceived in the Netherlands, led by Andreas Hsling from TU Eindhoven.

Ducas added: The selection of our schemes as a standard means that it will be deployed globally, protecting the privacy of billions of users. Fundamental research rarely gets such a direct and broad impact. The credit should go to the whole cryptographic research community. Whe schemes we proposed are merely the crystallisation of decades of scientific effort.

The algorithms developed by the international team are based on lattices, one of Ducas specialities. Both were designed together and share more than just the same mathematical platform, he said. We tried to make them look alike, so they will be easy to implement together. The Falcon algorithm designed for signatures also uses a lattice platform.

But that is where the similarity ends, said Ducas. This algorithm has different advantages and drawbacks.

One of his biggest concerns is that this algorithm computes with floating point numbers, as opposed to integers. Computers are obviously equipped to do this, but it is a real challenge for cryptology, said Ducas. Rounding can differ from computer to computer, so it has challenges for implementation. But because of its shorter keys, it was also selected for the NIST portfolio.

Now the four algorithms have been selected, they need to be written down into proper standards. This is obviously where NIST comes in, whereas we are mainly academics and technicians, said Ducas. NIST will draft up the ultimate text for the standard, but it will be in coordination with us.

NIST hopes to publish the standardisation documents by 2024 but, according to Wikipedia, may speed up the process if there are major breakthroughs in quantum computing.

After the release of the standards, the industry needs to be pushed to put them to use, said Ducas. I have a suspicion that most companies will want to be post-quantum resistant, so I think these standards will be easier to push than, for example, the hash function update from SHA-1 to SHA-2, he said. Moreover, I think IBM and NXP will incorporate their own designs within their own products.

Eventually, NIST is pushing the core of the new standard, the mathematical knowledge, but on top of that, there are a lot of things that are involved, like protocols, documentation, and so on. It might even evolve into an ISO standard, who knows, but NIST is leading the crowd.

So, will the new standards ensure we will be safe from quantum computers ability to possibly crack the RSA encryption? This is related to the P versus NP problem, said Ducas. The best guarantee we can have are the years of documented failures. This is the case with existing cryptology, and still is the case with post-quantum cryptology.

There is reasonable confidence to deploy, but no absolute mathematical guarantee. This is why we often say that cryptographers seldom sleep at night.

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Dutch influence standards for post-quantum cryptography - ComputerWeekly.com

Think about the humble envelope. For centuries this paper enclosure has shielded important information from prying eyes that might otherwise steal a glance at an unprotected note. Also, by placing information in an envelope, the sender effectively commits to and freezes this information until it gets to the recipient, assuming it is not tampered with or altered on its journey.

This system of secrecy served us well for centuries in an analogue world, but what about the digital environment in which we now communicate, shop and bank? Enter modern cryptography, which is the subject of this years Royal Irish Academy Hamilton Lecture by Israeli mathematician and computer scientist Prof Avi Wigderson. He will deliver his talk Cryptography: Secrets and Lies, Knowledge and Trust later this month at Trinity College Dublin.

Mathematician Avi Wigderson

Cryptography is nothing new, of course for centuries people have encoded information to scramble its contents, which can then be deciphered or unscrambled by a recipient who knows the key or rules to breaking that code. But cryptography developed a new dimension towards the end of the 20th century thanks to the marriage of computing power and complexity theory, and Wigderson has helped to shape its power.

Hard to solve, easy to verify

Imagine a tough Sudoku puzzle or a tough mathematical problem, he says. Most people may not be able to solve these, but if they saw the correct answer they could check and verify that it was correct. Such problems are of extreme importance in complexity theory.

Modern cryptography often makes use of such hard problems; difficult to solve but relatively easy to verify once solved, explains Wigderson, who is Herbert H Maass professor of mathematics at the School of Mathematics the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.

About 40 years ago, people started understanding that introducing computational complexity, namely the fact that some problems are easy and some are hard for us and for computers, could be used as a basis for cryptography, he says.

Cloaking information in such hard-to-solve problems is akin to the sender sealing the envelope in the analogue world. Here one uses specific hard problems with extra structure such as factoring integers into primes which enable encoding any number by another which, like an envelope, obscures the original to anyone else, but commits the encoder to that value, he says.

In a similar way tough mathematical problems can shield information as it travels digitally, and the solutions can be rapidly verified when the information lands.

That complexity-based approach provides a system for secrecy without the need for physical means, and it allows us to do many more things than just send secret messages around, says Wigderson. You can use it to protect a vast array of transactions you might want to carry out in a digital world, and it led eventually to the revolution of online shopping and internet security.

Hamiltonian paths

Much like cryptography, the notion of hard-to-solve problems is not new. Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, after whom the Hamilton Lecture is named, made contributions to the field in the 19th century, particularly with his exploration of Hamiltonian Paths, Wigderson says.

Think of a map with several cities on it, he says. Can you trace an unbroken route through those cities and visit each city only once? If there are 1,000 cities on this map, then it becomes a very hard problem to solve you seem to need to try all possible routes an astronomical number.

But if a solution, namely a route, is provided, then you can look at the map and quickly check that no city has been visited twice in the unbroken route. This was the kind of hard-to-solve but easy-to-verify problem that Hamilton explored. Today we know it to be a prototypical example of problems of this type it is as hard as any of them.

The mystery of A to B

One of the great mysteries of the field of complexity is what goes on between point A and point B, where some seemingly hard problems are solved. This, he says, has ramifications for questions far beyond cryptography, including climate, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and medicine.

How do you explain why a particular drug works to cure a disease, or how actions in the atmosphere affect weather and climate, or how a thought is generated in the brain, or how a neural network can beat a world champion at chess, he asks. It may be easy to verify that these things happen, but how do they happen?

Nor can we explain exactly how scientific luminaries such as Newton, Hamilton, Pasteur and Einstein came up with their insights and theories, he adds. They were extremely successful in explaining things that people hundreds and thousands of years before them couldnt explain that way, Wigderson points out. They came up with something that it seems was much easier to verify than to find.

Complexity and curiosity

He distinguishes between the questions of finding an algorithm that works, and the question of how it works. I think many people would be extremely happy if some black box would solve all their problems, making them happy and healthy and living for 100 years, even if they didnt quite understand how this algorithm came up with it, he says. I think that would be big progress.

But Wigderson, who in 2021 shared the prestigious Abel Prize with Lszl Lovsz for their foundational contributions to theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics, and their leading role in shaping them into central fields of modern mathematics, also wants to understand the how of the complexity that underpins outcomes. And his drive is simple: he is curious. I think it is the most natural thing in the world to want to understand how everything happens.

That curiosity continues to drive Wigderson: I am totally fascinated by computation and what it can and cannot do. And by computation, I do not necessarily mean computers; every physical and natural process that happens ocean waves or the weather or the evolution of growth of embryo in the uterus, or the leaves on a plant or the formation of seashells or viruses causing disease all these processes are computations, in that they evolve in a sequence of simple, local steps like a computer programme.

Taking a computational approach to the natural world can yield important insights, Wigderson believes. We saw in the 1950s how Alan Turing, a mathematician famous for deciphering code, proposed a simple model that shows how patterns such as spots and stripes on animals skin can evolve. Working with computation and complexity you can get profound insights into the natural world and many of the issues that are facing us today, and I find that fascinating.

Hamilton Lecture 2022

Prof Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University will deliver the 2022 RIA Hamilton Lecture on Cryptography: Secrets and Lies, Knowledge and Trust on Monday, October 17th, 2022 at 6pm-7.30pm. Tickets are free

Originally posted here:
Cracking the code of cryptography and life The Irish Times - The Irish Times

SCOTTSVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Castle Shield Holdings, LLC., a leader in Zero Trust and cybersecurity solutions, today announced that its Aeolus VPN solution now supports additional post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Last year, prior to the conclusion of the third round of the NIST PQC Standardization, we announced the successful integration of the Saber algorithm into Aeolus VPN. Reference our October 11, 2021, press release.

NIST has now selected two primary PQC algorithms for most use cases: CRYSTALS-KYBER and CRYSTALS-Dilithium. In addition, the signature schemes FALCON and SPHINCS+ were standardized as well. Kyber and Dilithium were both selected for their strong security and excellent performance, and NIST expects them to work well in most applications. Therefore, we have integrated Kyber (i.e., Kyber1024) and Dilithium (i.e., Dilithium5) algorithms into Aeolus VPN as well.

Aeolus VPN protects data between two or more network points. It offers a streamlined approach to privacy which results in more stability and lower latency that is a perfect addition to enterprise data-in-motion security for both classic and post-quantum computing environments. Aeolus VPN offers point-to-point asymmetric PQC and symmetric encryption for UDP and TCP on Windows, Linux and macOS platforms.

At Castle Shield, we are encryption agnostic. As NIST selects new PQC standards, we will add them to our suite of solutions that further demonstrates the cryptographic agility of our products. Our primary focus is to seamlessly integrate the best encryption algorithms available with our solutions to protect our customers data for today and tomorrow, said Dr. Milton Mattox, Chief Technology Officer at Castle Shield, Holdings, LLC.

Aeolus VPN with PQC continues to be available today for testing, proofs of concept, and production installations.

About Castle Shield Holdings, LLC

Founded in 2019, Castle Shield offers a complete range of enterprise-grade cybersecurity solutions that protects enterprises and consumers against all internal and external cyber threats. Our quantum-resistant solutions (Fides) stand strong as the last line of defense for enterprise and consumer data in the emerging quantum computing threat landscape. Legion, our Security Information Event Management or (SIEM) product portfolio and Fides work together to strengthen your overall data security. We monitor and address threat vectors through our scalable, multi-tenant SIEM platform, protecting enterprise systems and data in an efficient, cost-effective manner. In addition, we utilize an advanced compliance platform (Senate) and expert analysis with an in-depth understanding of dynamic compliance standards and industry best practices to highlight cyber risk factors. Our Senate system provides comprehensive ratings for third party vendors based on technical risk scores, compliance, and financial impact in the event of a breach. Our 360 proactive security solutions are what sets Castle Shield apart independent of your IT backbone whether cloud, hybrid or premise based. For further information, please go to http://www.castle-shield.com

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Castle Shield Holdings, LLC Updates the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Algorithms for Its Data-in-Motion Aeolus VPN Solution - Business Wire

Yale, which was ranked 34 in Coindesks 2022 Best Universities for Blockchain, has invested significantly in the rapidly growing field.

Alex Ye 12:08 am, Oct 12, 2022

Staff Reporter

Zoe Berg, Senior Photographer

This time last year, Yale was unranked in CoinDesks Best Universities for Blockchain. A year later the University places 34th overall, on par with Harvard and other major universities around the world.

The reports results recognize Yales recent significant investments into blockchain research, including the hiring of four new blockchain experts to the Computer Science faculty, Ben Fisch, Charalampos Papamanthou, Katerina Sotiraki and Fan Zhang one of whom is leading a project that has received a $5.75 million grant for blockchain development.

In the last few years, blockchain, as an interdisciplinary field, has spurred a huge amount of development in distributed systems and cryptography and their intersection, said Fisch. This is also why its such a fascinating academic topic, because it ties together so many different fields, not only from computer science, but also from economics, law and policy. Yale has a very unique combination of strengths in all these different areas, especially at present.

In August, Yale blockchain researchers accepted a $5.75 million grant from the Algorand Foundation, a not-for-profit organization focused on the development of blockchain technology.

The grant will support PAVE: A Center for Privacy, Accountability, Verification and Economics of Blockchain Systems, which will be led by Papamanthou. PAVE will bring together a cross-disciplinary team of experts from four institutions Yale, Columbia University, the City College of New York and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, with Yale being the leading institution to advance research of blockchain systems.

Apart from the technical agenda, PAVE will also host hackathons, symposiums and blockchain summer schools.

The expansion of blockchain research at Yale coincides with the rise of the blockchain technology market. The value of blockchain technology in the banking, financial services and insurance sector market is expected to grow by $4.02 billion between 2021 and 2026, according to Technavio. The Technavio study found that easier access to technology and disintermediation of banking services will create more growth opportunities within the industry.

Papamanthou believes the hirings acknowledged the importance of blockchain, and that the University has more generally acknowledged the interdisciplinary nature of the blockchain space. He emphasized the University provides opportunities to explore the blockchain industry, such as interdisciplinary majors like computer science and economics.

Papamanthou spotlighted the newly established Roberts Innovation Fund created by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which assists blockchain projects that could be commercialized through funding and mentoring.

An increasing number of students are interested in the field of blockchain, according to Mariam Alaverdian 23, president of the Yale Blockchain Club.

Alaverdian explained that because of the many applications of blockchain technology from personal identity security to healthcare to money transfers the emergence of blockchain into our lives is inevitable. She added that the Yale Blockchain Club has seen interested students come from a variety of backgrounds, with some having no prior exposure and others who already have startups in the space.

The Yale Blockchain Club started last spring and we received a lot of attention from Yale undergraduate and graduate students, Alaverdian wrote in an email to the News. We had 600 people sign up for our mailing list within a couple of weeks there is definitely a high demand from Yale students for educational materials and guidance.

As the blockchain industry has continued to grow, Yale has been a fierce advocate for blockchain research and development, Papamanthou noted.

Papamanthou explained that because Yales faculty is now made up of leaders in the field of

distributed computing and cryptography, the potential blockchain innovation at Yale could be unprecedented.

Its amazing that Yale has hired two phenomenal professors, Ben Fisch and Fan Zhang, whose research focuses on aspects of blockchains, said Roshan Palakkal 25, a student in Frontiers of Blockchain Research, a course taught by Fisch. Yale CS typically isnt known to be the best, but I think the new classes and faculty have positioned it to become one of the best universities for blockchain, with lots of potential for interdisciplinary collaboration in areas like economics, global affairs, and public policy.

Papamanthou added that students who are interested in blockchain have access to a variety of courses across the Computer Science and Economics Departments, as well as at the Yale School of Management and Yale Law School.

According to Fisch, from a computer science perspective, Yale is educationally competitive with any other university in the field of blockchain.

I will be offering a course in the spring that is comparable to the blockchain course thats offered by Stanford, Fisch said. And the research seminar that Im teaching now is uncommon at other universities, as it really goes in depth at a graduate level into all the most recent research topics that are being worked on currently.

The Yale Computer Science Department is located at 51 Prospect St.

Alex Ye covers faculty and academics. He previously covered the endowment, finance and donations. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, he is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight majoring in applied mathematics.

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Yale increases investment in blockchain research - Yale Daily News

The replacement of traditional password-based authentication mechanisms with leading passwordless technology will allow OPPO users to benefit from faster, more convenient, and more secure logins across different accounts, services, and platforms

DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- OPPO recently announced that it has joined the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, an open industry association with a mission to develop authentication standards that reduce the world's over-reliance on traditional passwords. As a member of the Alliance, OPPO will support the development and implementation of the latest FIDO standards for passwordless logins, utilizing basic public passkey cryptography and the protocols defined by FIDO, to provide users with a fast, user-friendly, and secure sign-in experiences across services.

OPPO joins the FIDO Alliance (PRNewsfoto/OPPO)

Today's average internet user has dozens of online accounts, making managing large numbers of passwords a very time-consuming and frustrating task for both users and organizations. At the same time, password-only authentication methods suffer a few severe setbacks from high administration costs involved in changing and resetting user passwords to the considerable security risks from weak passwords and password reuse across multiple accounts. As such, there have been calls across the technology industry to move towards a sign-in mechanism that can mitigate the reliance on passwords or even replace them entirely.

Founded in 2012 to help reduce the world's over-reliance on passwords, the FIDO Alliance works to develop standards for password-free identity authentication and login for websites, services, and applications worldwide. The Alliance's latest authentication specification, FIDO2, provides a secure and convenient technical framework supported by companies including Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm.

Following its entry into the FIDO Alliance, OPPO will actively use FIDO standards across its smart devices and work on optimizing user experiences and improving authentication security. In the future, users can use OPPO smartphones to work as a "passkey" to log in to different services across browsers, apps, and platforms, which helps create a seamless connected experience. When using multiple smart devices, users can automatically access their FIDO credentials on the core OPPO device without re-enrolling every account on other OS platforms or browsers.

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As a member of the FIDO Alliance, OPPO will also join the different technical and regional FIDO working groups, through which OPPO will make technical contributions to bringing password-free login technology to more use cases and services.

In the digital world, greater information flows lead to greater security challenges. Through its brand proposition of "Inspiration Ahead," OPPO will work with partners across the industry to create more secure and convenient password-free connected experiences that enable new intelligent experiences for more users.

About OPPO

OPPOis a leading global technology brand since 2004, dedicated to providing products that seamlessly combines art and innovative technology.

OPPO is on a mission to build a multiple-access smart device ecosystemfor the era of intelligent connectivity. The smartphone deviceshave simply been a gateway for OPPO to deliver a diverse portfolio of smart and frontier technologies in hardware, software and system. In 2019, OPPO launched a $7 Billion US Dollar three-year investment plan in R&D to develop core technologies furthering design through technology.

OPPOis firmly pursuing the creation of the best technology products and technological artistry for global users. Based on the brand elements of leading, young and beautiful, OPPO dedicates to the mission of letting extraordinary users enjoy the beauty of technology.

For the last 10 years, OPPO has focused on manufacturing smartphoneswith camera capabilities that are second to none. OPPO launched the first mobile phone, the Smile Phone, in 2008, which marked the launch of the brand's epic journey in exploring and pioneering extraordinary technology. Over the years, OPPO has built a tradition of being number one, which became a reality through inventing the world's first rotating camera smartphoneway back in 2013, launching the world's then thinnest smartphone in 2014, being the first to introduce 5X Zoom 'Periscope' camera technology and developing the first 5G commercial smartphonein Europe.

Today, OPPO was ranked as the number four smartphone brand globally. OPPO brings the aesthetics of technology to global consumers through the ColorOS system Experience, and Internet services like OPPO Cloud and OPPO+.

OPPO's business covers 60 countries and regions, with more than 40,000 dedicated employees to create a better life for customers around the world.

About OPPO MEA

OPPO started its journey in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region in 2015 after setting up its regional office in Egypt. Following the immense success of the brand's sales centre in Cairo in the first year, OPPO accelerated its expansion plan across the MEA region and inaugurated its country operations in the UAE in 2019. Now OPPO is physically present in more than 14 markets across the region, including Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and the Levant.

To empower its presence in the region in line with its product localisation strategy, OPPO further invested in MENA and set up its very own factory in Algeria in 2017, thus, becoming the first Chinese brand to build a manufacturing premise in North Africa. Based on insights of local consumers in each country, OPPO has evolved the progress of product localisation, taking into consideration several perspectives towards each market, including product localisation, to further meet the core needs of users; marketing localisation, to better communicate with local young customers; and talent localisation, to understand local consumers further and provide optimum customer service.

Within the last year, OPPO has started to adjust its product line in the Middle East region specifically. This has included the launch of its flagship OPPO Find X Series and the introduction of the OPPO Reno Series. OPPO will continue to evolve its local product line to offer more premium series to consumers in the region.

A forward-thinking international technology company, OPPO strives to be a sustainable company that contributes to a better world and has enacted positive change in every way possible through activating local community initiatives and humanitarian, and charity campaigns.

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OPPO joins the FIDO Alliance, accelerating the arrival of a new era of passwordless sign-ins - Yahoo Finance