NIST has initiated a process to solicit, evaluate, and standardize one or more quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms.  Full details can be found in the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization page.    The Round 3 candidates were announced July 22, 2020.  NISTIR 8309, Status Report on the Second Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process is now available.  NIST has developed Guidelines for Submitting Tweaks for Third Round Finalists and Candidates.  Background  In recent years, there has been a substantial amount of research on quantum computers – machines that exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to solve mathematical problems that are difficult or intractable for conventional computers. If large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will be able to break many of the public-key cryptosystems currently in use. This would seriously compromise the confidentiality and integrity of digital communications on the Internet and elsewhere.  The goal of post-quantum...

NIST plans to approve one or more schemes for stateful hash-based signatures (HBS) as part of the post-quantum cryptography development effort. NIST is actively considering two such schemes developed through the Internet Engineering Task Force: 1) XMSS, specified in Request for Comments (RFC) 8391 in May 2018, and 2) LMS, currently specified in RFC 8554.  Background  HBS schemes were the topic for a session of talks during the first public workshop on post-quantum security, as well as the panel discussion that followed it. Participants expressed significant interest in the standardization of such schemes at that time, because the underlying technology was well understood. In particular, the security of an HBS scheme, when implemented properly, relies only on the preimage resistance of its component cryptographic hash function. This property is already the basis for the security of many NIST-approved cryptographic algorithms and protocols, and no quantum computing algorithms are known that would pose a...