Separating Standard and Asymmetric Password-Authenticated Key Exchange.

Ran Canetti, Dana Dachman-Soled, Vinod Vaikuntanathan +1 more

Edward Eaton, Douglas Stebila

Céline Chevalier, Marc Kaplan, Quoc-Huy Vu

Xichen Zhang, Keitaro Hashimoto, Wakaha Ogata

Nouri Alnahawi, David Haas, Erik Mauß +1 more

Password Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE) establishes secure communication channels using passwords for authentication. Currently, standardized PAKEs rely on classical asymmetric cryptography. However, these PAKEs may become insecure should the expected quantum threat become a reality. Despite the growing interest in realizing quantum-safe PAKEs, they did not receive much attention from the ongoing Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) integration efforts. Hence, there is a significant awareness gap compared to PQC primitives subject to the official standardization processes. We provide a comprehensive overview of existing PQC PAKEs, classify their design rationales and authentication methods, and address aspects related to their security and performance. We identify PAKE designs that are still unexplored in the PQC realm and discuss the possibility of their adaptation. Thus, we offer a detailed reference for future work on PQC PAKEs.

Brian A. LaMacchia, Kristin Lauter, Anton Mityagin