The scientific article reviews and analyzes the current stage of cryptography development in the context of the inevitable post-quantum era. It is emphasized that post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is gaining the status of a key priority in the national security strategies of the world's leading developed countries, which are actively preparing for a fundamental transition to quantum-safe cryptographic practices. The consequence of the above is the urgent need for intensive development of the latest cryptographic algorithms, which by their nature will be resistant to attacks from powerful quantum computers. Today, several promising approaches to the creation of such quantum-safe algorithms based on various mathematical concepts and cryptographic primitives are already being actively studied. The article pays special attention to cryptography based on hash functions, which is considered one of the most promising areas in the context of developing reliable quantum-safe cryptographic tools. The potential for cracking cryptographic hash functions using quantum algorithms is analyzed. The article considers an original approach to assessing the quantum stability of hash functions, which consists in encoding the hash function itself in a quantum oracle, rather than its separate solution. A simplified (toy) hash function is used to clearly demonstrate the proposed idea. Based on the results of the experimental study, important conclusions are formulated, which indicate that quantum computers are indeed capable of significantly accelerating the process of inversion of cryptographic hash functions. This, in turn, provides strong grounds for serious concern about the cryptographic stability of various cryptographic primitives based on combinatorial problems. It is worth emphasizing that this problem is not limited to hash functions. This critically important observation means that to maintain a similar level of cryptographic security in the coming quantum era, the size of the input value of hash functions will likely need to be increased by at least half to compensate for the speedup provided by quantum algorithms.
The scientific article reviews and analyzes the current stage of cryptography development in the context of the inevitable post-quantum era. It is emphasized that post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is gaining the status of a key priority in the national security strategies of the world's leading developed countries, which are actively preparing for a fundamental transition to quantum-safe cryptographic practices. The consequence of the above is the urgent need for intensive development of the latest cryptographic algorithms, which by their nature will be resistant to attacks from powerful quantum computers. Today, several promising approaches to the creation of such quantum-safe algorithms based on various mathematical concepts and cryptographic primitives are already being actively studied. The article pays special attention to cryptography based on hash functions, which is considered one of the most promising areas in the context of developing reliable quantum-safe cryptographic tools. The potential for cracking cryptographic hash functions using quantum algorithms is analyzed. The article considers an original approach to assessing the quantum stability of hash functions, which consists in encoding the hash function itself in a quantum oracle, rather than its separate solution. A simplified (toy) hash function is used to clearly demonstrate the proposed idea. Based on the results of the experimental study, important conclusions are formulated, which indicate that quantum computers are indeed capable of significantly accelerating the process of inversion of cryptographic hash functions. This, in turn, provides strong grounds for serious concern about the cryptographic stability of various cryptographic primitives based on combinatorial problems. It is worth emphasizing that this problem is not limited to hash functions. This critically important observation means that to maintain a similar level of cryptographic security in the coming quantum era, the size of the input value of hash functions will likely need to be increased by at least half to compensate for the speedup provided by quantum algorithms.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing technology presents a significant challenge to the field of cryptography, particularly affecting the security of hash functions that form the foundation of many cryptographic protocols. Hash functions are widely used to ensure data integrity, generate digital signatures, and securely store passwords. However, the emergence of quantum algorithms—such as Grover’s algorithm—threatens to undermine the security assumptions on which these hash functions are based by significantly reducing their effective security levels. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the vulnerabilities introduced by quantum computing to traditional hash functions, detailing how these weaknesses can be exploited by quantum adversaries. We explore the fundamental properties of hash functions, including pre-image resistance, second pre-image resistance, and collision resistance, and assess how these properties are affected in a quantum context. Furthermore, we examine the implications of these vulnerabilities for existing cryptographic systems and emphasize the urgent need for the development of post-quantum cryptographic standards. In response to these challenges, we review ongoing research efforts focused on designing hash functions that are resilient to quantum attacks. We evaluate several promising candidates for post-quantum hash functions, considering their security properties, performance metrics, and practical applicability. The findings of this paper highlight the necessity of transitioning to post-quantum cryptographic solutions to safeguard sensitive information in an increasingly quantum-capable world. Ultimately, we advocate for proactive measures within the cryptographic community to adopt and implement these new standards, thereby ensuring robust data security in the age of quantum computing.
This article analyzes the threats to the security of modern cryptographic systems posed by the development of quantum computers, as well as the emergence of the concept of post-quantum cryptography as a solution to these problems. The study demonstrates that classical public-key cryptosystems, particularly RSA, DSA, and elliptic curve-based algorithms, can be broken using quantum algorithms. At the same time, new cryptographic systems based on hash functions, codes, lattices, and multivariate quadratic equations are considered a promising direction. The main challenges related to the efficiency, reliability, and applicability of post-quantum cryptography are also highlighted. As a result, the necessity of developing new cryptographic standards to ensure future information security is demonstrated.
-Quantum computer is no longer a hypothetical idea. It is the world's most important technology and there is a race among countries to get supremacy in quantum technology. It is the technology that will reduce the computing time from years to hours or even minutes. The power of quantum computing will be a great support for the scientific community. However, it raises serious threats to cybersecurity. Theoretically, all the cryptography algorithms are vulnerable to attack. The practical quantum computers, when available with millions of qubits capacity, will be able to break nearly all modern public-key cryptographic systems. Before the quantum computers arrive with sufficient ‘qubit’ capacity, we must be ready with quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms, tools, techniques, and deployment strategies to protect the ICT infrastructure. This paper discusses in detail the global effort for the design, development, and standardization of various quantum-safe cryptography algorithms along with the performance analysis of some of the potential quantum-safe algorithms. Most quantum-safe algorithms need more CPU cycles, higher runtime memory, and a large key size. The objective of the paper is to analyze the feasibility of the various quantum-safe cryptography algorithms.
With the constantly advancing capabilities of quantum computers, conventional cryptographic systems relying on complex math problems may encounter unforeseen vulnerabilities. Unlike regular computers, which are often deemed cost-ineffective in cryptographic attacks, quantum computers have a significant advantage in calculation speed. This distinction potentially makes currently used algorithms less secure or even completely vulnerable, compelling the exploration of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) as the most reasonable solution to quantum threats. This review aims to provide current information on applications, benefits, and challenges associated with the PQC. The review employs a systematic scoping review with the scope restricted to the years 2022 and 2023; only articles that were published in scientific journals were used in this paper. The review examined the articles on the applications of quantum computing in various spheres. However, the scope of this paper was restricted to the domain of the PQC because most of the analyzed articles featured this field. Subsequently, the paper is analyzing various PQC algorithms, including lattice-based, hash-based, code-based, multivariate polynomial, and isogeny-based cryptography. Each algorithm is being judged based on its potential applications, robustness, and challenges. All the analyzed algorithms are promising for the post-quantum era in such applications as digital signatures, communication channels, and IoT. Moreover, some of the algorithms are already implemented in the spheres of banking transactions, communication, and intellectual property. Meanwhile, despite their potential, these algorithms face serious challenges since they lack standardization, require vast amounts of storage and computation power, and might have unknown vulnerabilities that can be discovered only with years of cryptanalysis. This overview aims to give a basic understanding of the current state of post-quantum cryptography with its applications and challenges. As the world enters the quantum era, this review not only shows the need for strong security methods that can resist quantum attacks but also presents an optimistic outlook on the future of secure communications, guided by advancements in quantum technology. By bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical implementation, this paper aims to inspire further innovation and collaboration in the field.
Modern encryption methods are built upon the fundamentally “uncomfortable” process of computing huge integers to their primes. However, current cryptography is vulnerable to both increases in processing power and the emergence of quickly reversing huge integer factorization in mathematics. Therefore, incorporating quantum physics into encryption is the solution, which leads to an assessment of quantum cryptography. The field of cryptography and security is undergoing significant change as a result of the potential of scalable quantum computing. In this theoretical paper, the authors examine the development of quantum computing. The authors continue by listing the current threats to cryptographic primitives. Readers can deduce knowledge of a variety of topics from this review article, including risks posed by quantum technologies to traditional cryptography, modern cryptography – private key cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, and effects on hash functions and post-quantum cryptography.
There is an urgent threat of massive computerised systems that promote the active shift in the strategy of digital fraction of communications and data protection. This chapter examines a relatively difficult and rapidly advancing field of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) that deals with the design of new primitive cryptology resistant to even the most challenging, such as Shor and Grover, quantum algorithms. We also further investigate the most important families of PQCs undergoing standardisation and analysis, such as lattice-based, code-based, multivariate, and hash-based schemes, their expected mathematical security, and performance trade-off in terms of key size, computation cost, and resistance to side-channel attacks. Besides the underlying algorithms, we also consider the thorny circumstances along with the most significant instantaneous-first steps of effective global transition, procedures such as integration with the existing security mechanisms, secure management of the new PQC keys, and the thorny issue of hybrid solutions, which consist of a combination of PQC and existing classical methods. Finally, we look at the prospects of the research and have a discussion of the innovation; the entire problem of fully homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs on a quantum-safe system, as even today, the flexibility of cryptography and innovativeness are still required to ensure that information security is guaranteed in the long-term perspectives of the quantum-sensitive world.