PQ Cybersecurity

Post-quantum cybersecurity: A project that will help prepare the UK for the post-quantum cybersecurity era when a fully functioning quantum computer becomes available. But what's wrong with a quantum computer?

Nothing is wrong with it, except that it is conceptually different from a conventional/classical computer and can, therefore, perform some types of computational tasks much faster than classical computers; examples of the computational problems that become easy on a quantum computer include the integer factorisation and discrete logarithm problems, which are the main hard computational problems that our cryptography today relies on. Consequently, a quantum computer can be used to run an algorithm that is able to decrypt any ciphertext that contains confidential data and forge any (currently in use) digital signature scheme. As a result, the whole idea of e-commerce and online transactions/banking will be obsolete! So, how are we going to solve this problem?

We will use "different cryptography" to build the post-quantum cybersecurity infrastructure. In fact, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just started the process of standardising a new generation of cryptosystems that rely on mathematical problems that are still hard even for a quantum computer to solve.

In our project, we will consider these hard mathematical problems and contribute to the standardisation process by evaluating and cryptanalysing the submitted schemes. We will test those schemes by running live yet secure experiments on hybrid cryptosystems ( a combination of a current cryptosystem with a PQ secure one). Finally, our main commercial focus will be Post-Quantum IoT and Cloud Computing Services (CCS), which we believe to be the two biggest markets that make use of cybersecurity.