Deployment and Usability of Next-Generation Encryption for Network Security

Our digital society critically relies on protection of data and communication against espionage and cyber crime. Underlying all protection mechanisms is cryptography, which we are using daily to protect, for example, internet communication or e-banking. This protection is threatened by the dawn of universal quantum computers, which will break large parts of the cryptography in use today.   Transitioning current cryptographic algorithms to crypto that resist attacks by large quantum computers, so called ``post-quantum cryptography'', is possibly the largest challenge applied cryptography is facing since becoming a domain of public research in the second half of the last century. Large standardization bodies, most prominently ETSI and NIST, have started efforts to evaluate concrete proposals of post-quantum crypto for standardization and deployment. NIST's effort follows in the tradition of successful public ``crypto competitions'' with strong involvement by the academic cryptographic community.   This project evaluates how post-quantum cryptosystems behave in real-world systems. More specifically, it joins the expertise of the applicant in post-quantum cryptography and the secure and efficient implementation of cryptosystems with the expertise of Compumatica in building appliances that secure network communication in corporate and government environments. The project will upgrade two such systems to the next generation of cryptography, namely virtual private networks (VPNs) and secure e-mail. This upgrade will include implementations in software and, where required for security or   performance, in hardware. All implementations and the experience from integrating, testing, and benchmarking different post-quantum cryptographic primitives inside these real-world scenarios will be made publicly available to ensure knowledge transfer into industry and open-source projects