Security News > 2022 > August > Post-quantum cryptography – new algorithm “gone in 60 minutes”
Grover's algorithm given a big and powerful enough quantum computer, claims to be able to complete the same feat with the square root of the usual effort, thus cracking the code, in theory, in just 264 tries instead. Shor's quantum factorisation algorithm.
Or you'd have to adopt a completely new sort of post-quantum encryption system to which Shor's algorithm didn't apply.
It is intended that the new public-key cryptography standards will specify one or more additional unclassified, publicly disclosed digital signature, public-key encryption, and key-establishment algorithms that are available worldwide, and are capable of protecting sensitive government information well into the foreseeable future, including after the advent of quantum computers.
At the same timeas announcing the new standards, NIST also announced a fourth round of its competition, putting a further four algorithms forward as possible alternative KEMs. These were: BIKE, Classic McEliece, HQC and SIKE. Intriguingly, the McEliece algorithm was invented way back in the 1970s by American cryptographer Robert Mc Eliece, who died in 2019, well after NIST's contest was already underway.
That's against the SIKE algorithm when configured to meet Level 1, NIST's basic grade of encryption security.
It's also a pointed example of why proprietary encryption systems that rely on the secrecy of the algorithm itself to maintain their security are simply unacceptable in 2022.