Post-quantum cryptographic IP from Xiphera

Such security is executed on classical computing platforms to protect against quantum computing based attacks.

Branded ‘xQlave’, the IP blocks are aimed at quantum-secure key exchange and digital signatures.

“Powerful enough quantum computers will be able to break current public-key asymmetric cryptosystems based on integer factorisation and discrete logarithms, compromising the entire basis of information and network security,” said Xiphera. “The xQlave family introduces IP cores for the post-quantum cryptographic algorithms recently announced as the winners of the competition by the American National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST].”

The first product in the product family is for the Crystals-Kyber key encapsulation algorithm, and will be available for customer evaluation in January 2023.

This will be followed by further cores for that algorithm, balancing resources and performance, as well as for the Crystals-Dilithium digital signature algorithm.

“The xQlave family forms the core of Xiphera’s product offering for public-key cryptography in the future, and used together with traditional elliptic curve cryptography in hybrid encryption schemes, offers protection against quantum-computing attacks already today,” said company CTO and co-founder Kimmo Järvinen.

According to Xiphera, concerns have been raised about sensitive data being stolen today and stored for decryption when sufficient quantum computing power is available. It said that the American NSA and French ANSSI security organisations already recommend that systems designed and deployed today are quantum-secure-cryptography-ready.

Xiphera is based in Espoo Finnland, and develops cryptographic intellectual property for FPGAs and asics.