Physical Security in the Post-quantum Era: A Survey on Side-channel Analysis, Random Number Generators, and Physically Unclonable Functions

Abstract

Over the past decades, quantum technology has seen consistent progress, with notable recent developments in the field of quantum computers. Traditionally, this trend has been primarily seen as a serious risk for cryptography; however, a positive aspect of quantum technology should also be stressed. In this regard, viewing this technology as a resource for honest parties rather than adversaries, it may enhance not only the security, but also the performance of specific cryptographic schemes. While considerable effort has been devoted to the design of quantum-resistant and quantum-enhanced schemes, little effort has been made to understanding their physical security. Physical security deals with the design and implementation of security measures fulfilling the practical requirements of cryptographic primitives, which are equally essential for classic and quantum ones. This survey aims to draw greater attention to the importance of physical security, with a focus on secure key generation and storage as well as secure execution. More specifically, the possibility of performing side-channel analysis in the quantum world is discussed and compared to attacks launched in the classic world. Besides, proposals for quantum random number generation and quantum physically unclonable functions are compared to their classic counterparts and further analyzed to give a better understanding of their features, advantages, and shortcomings. Finally, seen from these three perspectives, this survey provides an outlook for future research in this direction. CCS Concepts: • Security and privacy → Cryptanalysis and other attacks; Security in hardware; • Hardware → Integrated circuits; Quantum communication and cryptography.

Securing the future internet of things with post‐quantum cryptography

“…Figure 2 shows the algorithms developed in these categories and submitted to NIST for evaluation in 3 different rounds [4]. These categories and their importance to resource-constraint IoT networks are explained as follows [4], [7] [8] [9]. In NIST Post-quantum cryptography standardization, 23 signature and 59 encryption schemes were submitted in the initial round at the end of 2017.…”

Remote quantum-safe authentication of entities with physical unclonable functions

“…The nature of the physical token essentially determines the nature of the challenges and the responses, as well as the operation of the PUF. One can find a broad range of PUFs in the literature [9][10][11], and electronic PUFs is the most well studied class, mainly because of their compatibility with existing technology and hardware. However, they are susceptible to various types of modelling and side-channel attacks [10,[12][13][14][15], and current research is focused on the development of new schemes, which offer provable security against such attacks (e.g., see [16] and references therein).…”

“…One can find a broad range of PUFs in the literature [9][10][11], and electronic PUFs is the most well studied class, mainly because of their compatibility with existing technology and hardware. However, they are susceptible to various types of modelling and side-channel attacks [10,[12][13][14][15], and current research is focused on the development of new schemes, which offer provable security against such attacks (e.g., see [16] and references therein). On the contrary, optical PUFs are not fully compatible with existing technology, but they offer many advantages relative to electronic PUFs, including low cost, high complexity, and security against modeling attacks [10,17].…”

“…However, they are susceptible to various types of modelling and side-channel attacks [10,[12][13][14][15], and current research is focused on the development of new schemes, which offer provable security against such attacks (e.g., see [16] and references therein). On the contrary, optical PUFs are not fully compatible with existing technology, but they offer many advantages relative to electronic PUFs, including low cost, high complexity, and security against modeling attacks [10,17]. Typically, their operation relies on the response of a disordered optical multiple-scattering medium (token), when probed by light with randomly chosen parameters.…”