The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working on post-quantum cryptography to ensure the security of our communications on the internet and elsewhere. This is a critical task, as quantum computers have the potential to break some of the current cryptographic algorithms used to secure our communications.
NIST announced its plan to start an international competition to find new quantum-resistant cryptographic systems at the PQCrypto 2016 conference in Fukuoka, Japan. This competition is ongoing, and NIST hopes to select the new quantum-safe algorithms that it will standardize in another year or two.
The project involves selecting new quantum-safe algorithms that NIST will standardize in another year or two. The algorithms under evaluation are all submitted freely and openly by submitters from around the world.
We expect that we will announce the algorithms to be standardized sometime around the end of this year, or the beginning of next year. It’ll take a some time to then write the draft standard, submit it for public comments, resolve the comments, and get it approved for publication. I would estimate that it’ll be about 2024 before the standard is finalized.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/future-now-spreading-word-about-post-quantum-cryptography
Keywords: algorithm, cryptography, quantum computer, elliptic curve, standardization
