Cisco & ISARA Collaborate on a Proof of Concept of the World’s First Digital Certificate Compatible with Both Classic & Qua...
April 12 2018 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Dual-algorithm public key infrastructure
helps reduce cost and risk as the transition to quantum computing
approaches
Cisco Systems and ISARA Corp., the leading provider of security
solutions for the quantum computing age, today announced the
world’s first collaboration to test digital certificates that
operate in both classic and quantum-safe algorithm modes.
“The incredible potential of quantum computers also presents the
challenge of keeping data safe,” said ISARA Senior Product Manager
Alexander Truskovsky. “This proof-of-concept project with Cisco
demonstrates how a single digital certificate can accommodate
multiple public-key algorithms, which will help to reduce the costs
and risks during the migration process of the Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI) and its dependent systems.”
Most personal and corporate computing environments depend on the
PKIs to issue certificates that are essential to authenticating
digital transactions. This ensures that each party to the
transaction is, in fact, who they claim to be. Traditional
certificates only use a single algorithm, and will require the
issuance of duplicate certificates that use quantum-safe algorithms
once systems start to be upgraded. With dual-algorithm
certificates, a single certificate can be used both by systems
relying on classic cryptography and upgraded systems using
quantum-safe cryptography.
To showcase how this backward-compatible dual-algorithm (hybrid)
works, Cisco and ISARA are making available a public server that
uses these certificates to authenticate itself to transport-layer
security (TLS) clients. Backward-compatible hybrid certificates
that can also be issued to clients by using Enrollment over Secure
Transport (EST) are designed to help smooth the transition from
classic to quantum computing over the next several years while
maintaining strong mission-critical encryption standards.
Quantum computers require new approaches to public key
cryptography because the way they process information makes them
adept at breaking traditional cryptography based on the discrete
logarithm problem. Particularly challenging in the multi-year
transition period will be migrating systems that provide
authentication credentials along with the systems that rely on
these credentials.
“Once the quantum-safe algorithms are standardized, we may have
a very short time frame in order to migrate our systems. Preparing
a smoother migration to quantum-safe authentication is something we
can do now, while the new algorithms are going through the
selection process in NIST’s PQ Project,” said Cisco Technical
Marketing Engineer Panos Kampanakis. “As shown in our draft, our
intention with our co-authors is to standardize hybrid X.509
certificates in order to promote an interoperable and smoother
transition to post-quantum PKI”.
The demo server is located at http://test-pqpki.com and includes
instructions and links to the code for researchers who want to
download, test and review hybrid X.509 certificates.
The first phase of the project successfully used Leighton Micali
Scheme (LMS) stateful hash-based digital signatures. In phase two,
SPHINCS+ stateless hash-based signatures will be
implemented. More post-quantum signature algorithms will
follow.
To learn more and begin integrating ISARA’s quantum-safe
security solutions such as ISARA Radiate™ Security Solution Suite
in commercial products today, contact quantumsafe@isara.com.
About ISARA Corporation
ISARA is a cyber-security company specializing in creating
production-ready quantum-safe security solutions that can be
embedded into commercial products today to secure data now and in
the future. As a commercial solution provider within a rich
academic and research ecosystem, ISARA is part of a collaborative
effort to raise awareness of quantum threats, and design and
implement quantum-safe solutions that will work globally. For more
information, visit www.isara.com.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader in IT
and networking that helps companies seize the opportunities of
tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect
the previously unconnected. Discover more at newsroom.cisco.com and
follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
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For ISARA CorporationAaron Curtiss(720)
281-1395aaron@gfbunting.comorDavid Satterfield(408)
802-6767david@gfbunting.com
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