Protecting Digital Privacy and Data Against the Threat of Future Quantum Computers
ECE Professor Yunsi Fei is leading a $600K NSF grant, in collaboration with Yingjie Lao from Tufts University, for “Secure and Efficient CRYSTALS-Kyber Architecture to Resist Against Side-channel and Fault Attacks on Post-Quantum Cryptography.” Quantum computers threaten to eventually break the cryptographic systems that protect everything from personal banking and healthcare records to national defense communications, making the migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) one of the most consequential infrastructure transitions of our time. Ensuring that this new generation of cryptography is securely deployed is essential to safeguarding the digital systems society will depend on for decades to come. This project aims to close a critical gap between efficiency and security in PQC ML-KEM implementations.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cesareo Contreras. Main photo: Yunsei Fei said quantum computers pose a risk to our security. Researchers like herself are working to mitigate their risk. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Quantum computers could be a cybersecurity nightmare. This researcher is helping fend off that risk
Northeastern professor Yunsi Fei will be working on making post quantum cryptography systems more resilient to cyberattacks.
In the next five to 10 years quantum computers are predicted to be capable of decrypting everything from personal health records to national defense contracts.
That’s because these machines are poised to be extremely adept at breaking encryption codes. The mathematical algorithms found throughout the web help keep our precious data safe from hackers, explained Yunsi Fei, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University.
It would take upwards of a million years for today’s computers to solve the mathematical formulas underlying today’s encryption techniques, she said. But quantum computers could solve them in a fraction of the time.
The Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, estimates that “quantum computers have a better than 50% likelihood of breaking widely used cryptographic algorithms by 2035.”
To safeguard against this, governments and developers throughout the world have begun the process of developing new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms and techniques. In June, the White House even issued an executive order on the development of PQC technologies.
Yunsi Fei, professor of electrical and computer engineering, will work to make a well-known post quantum cryptography algorithm more resilient to cyberattacks. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
The order directs federal agencies to dedicate time and resources to accelerate the transition to PQC technologies, highlighting their importance for preserving “critical infrastructure and (the) digital economy” against potential quantum computing threats.
Now Fei, with the support from the National Science Foundation, will spend the next few years improving the resilience of a post-quantum computing encryption standard against a few of the most common ways hackers could intercept these systems in the future.
“If quantum computers come out within the next five years, we cannot wait until then to start looking for alternative algorithms,” she said.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News