International Association
for Cryptologic Research

The security infrastructure we rely on today is considered broken when a scalable quantum computer is successfully realized. Consequently, the NIST in USA initiated a call develop and standardize of new post-quantum cryptography (or PQC also called quantum-resistant cryptography) schemes replacing established public-key mechanisms (NIST PQC). As PQC is supposed to replace modern public-key schemes in the near future, it will only be considered as a feasible alternative if its constructions can be similarly efficiently implemented on many of the embedded processors existing in today’s digital and pervasive environment. These embedded processors make the backbone of computing and communication, actuating the revolution of the IoT today, with a sky-rocketing demand of more ubiquitous intelligence in future. This project will investigate efficient and lightweight implementations of PQC algorithms on an open-source RISC-V processor as would be used for IoT and edge applications. This project will test, evaluate, and scrutinize the practicability of lattice-based quantum resistant cryptographic schemes (from the NIST PQC) for an IoT end-node device by aggressively exploring several optimizations techniques. RISC-V’s instruction set is designed for modularity and extensibility, based on which domain-specific architecture aimed at a particular application like PQC can be developed. The project will analyse the performance bottlenecks in these implementations to determine how best to improve the efficiency of the algorithms while running on RISC-V using existing and/or custom ISE. This will be followed by an investigation of the performance trade-offs of any proposed approaches. Due to the physical vulnerability of such devices, Side Channel Analysis (SCA) is a significant concern, hence physical security of these devices will be taken up.

Applicants must have at least a 2:1 Honours Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics or closely related discipline.

International studentships are also available.

Closing date for applications:

Contact: Dr. Ayesha Khalid

More information: https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate-research/phd-opportunities/lightweight-post-quantum-cryptography-on-modern-opensource-riscv-processors.html