Analysis and research of digital signature algorithm Picnic

Abstract

An important feature of the post-quantum period in cryptography is the significant uncertainty regarding the source data for cryptanalysis and counteraction in terms of the capabilities of quantum computers, their mathematical and software, as well as the application of quantum cryptanalysis to existing cryptotransformations and cryptoprotocols. Mathematical methods of digital signature (DS) have been chosen as the main methods of NIST USA, which have undergone significant analysis and substantiation in the process of extensive research by cryptographers and mathematicians at the highest level. They are described in detail and studied at the first stage of the US NIST International Competition. In the second round, a number of decisions were made to merge some candidates for the post-quantum DS standard. 9 candidates were left for further research at the 2nd round: Crystals-Dilithium, Falcon, GeMSS, LUOV, MQDSS, Picnic, qTESLA, Rainbow and SPHINCS+. Three of them (Dilithium, Falcon, qTeSLA) are based on the stability of algebraic lattices (Lattice-based), four (GeMSS, LUOV, MQDSS, Rainbow) are based on multivariate transformations (MQ-transformations), one (SPHINCS+) is based on the stability of hash-function, one (Picnic) is based on the stability of the hash-function and block stream ciphers. During the 2nd round of the US NIST Competition the following finalist algorithms and alternative algorithms were selected as digital signatures according to the results of research on promising post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. As finalists algorithms such DS algorithms as Crystals-Dilithium, Falcon and Rainbow. Alternative algorithms are GeMSS, Picnic and SPHINCS+ were selected. This paper studies the peculiarities of construction of the digital signature algorithm considered as a candidate for the promising post-quantum standard of the NIST PQC competition – Picnic, also it analyzes the protection of the algorithm from known attacks. Data from the comparison of post-quantum algorithms such as digital signature are given. The description of the Picnic algorithm and its parameters are given.