Post Quantum Cryptography: A Review of Techniques, Challenges and Standardizations

The development of large quantum computers will have dire consequences for cryptography. Most of the symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms are vulnerable to quantum algorithms. Grover’s search algorithm gives a square root time boost for the searching of the key in symmetric schemes like AES and 3DES. The security of asymmetric algorithms like RSA, Diffie Hellman, and ECC is based on the mathematical hardness of prime factorization and discrete logarithms. The best classical algorithms available take exponential time. Shor’s factoring algorithm can solve the problems in polynomial time. Major breakthroughs in quantum computing will render all the present-day widely used asymmetric cryptosystems insecure. This paper analyzes the vulnerability of the classical cryptosystems in the context of quantum computers, discusses various post-quantum cryptosystem families, discusses the status of the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization process, provides a performance comparison of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms on different platforms, and finally provides a couple of future research directions in this field.