Abstract
Cryptography has been used from time immemorial for preserving the confidentiality of data/information in storage or transit. Thus, cryptography research has also been evolving from the classical Caesar cipher to the modern cryptosystems, based on modular arithmetic to the contemporary cryptosystems based on quantum computing. The emergence of quantum computing poses a major threat to the modern cryptosystems based on modular arithmetic, whereby even the computationally hard problems which constitute the strength of the modular arithmetic ciphers could be solved in polynomial time. This threat triggered post-quantum cryptography research to design and develop post-quantum algorithms that can withstand quantum computing attacks. This paper provides an overview of the various research directions that have been explored in post-quantum cryptography and, specifically, the various code-based cryptography research dimensions that have been explored. Some potential research directions that are yet to be explored in code-based cryptography research from the perspective of codes is a key contribution of this paper.
Highlights
Reduction of key size—large key size is one of the important limitations of code-based cryptography (CBC) and reducing the key size is an important research direction explored use of new kinds of linear and non-linear codes in CBC, viz. quantum cryptography (QC)-MDPC, QC-LDPC, etc.—recently CBC using these kinds of codes have been proposed to overcome various kinds of attacks algorithms for resolving new kinds of security attacks—there are various security attacks possible in CBC and various techniques and algorithms to counteract the same have been proposed evolving new signature schemes—signature schemes using CBC were a recent addition to CBC research
Post-quantum cryptography research has branched out in many dimensions and a considerable research outcome has been emerging in each of these dimensions. While this evinces the maturity of post-quantum cryptography research, each of these outcomes is available in discrete sources hindering the broad spectrum view and comprehension of these outcomes
This paper addresses this limitation, whereby, it provides a one-stop reference of the entire spectrum of post-quantum cryptography research and briefs the research happening in those directions
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cryptographic systems are built on complex mathematical problems such as integer factorization and computing discrete logarithms [1,2], which can only be solved if knowledge of some secret data is available; typically a very large number Without these numbers, it is impossible to reverse-engineer encrypted data or create a fraudulent digital signature. The asymmetric algorithms we use today for digital signatures and key exchange will no longer be strong enough to keep data secret once a sufficiently powerful quantum computer can be built. This means that core cryptographic technologies that we have to rely on, RSA and elliptic curve cryptography, will become insecure.
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