Keysight Enhances Post-Quantum Cryptography with Advanced Testing Capabilities

SINGAPORE (May 6, 2024) — The industry’s first testing capabilities for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) robustness testing was announced by Keysight Technologies, Inc. With the most recent release of Keysight Inspector, the extensive platform that assists chip and device manufacturers in locating and resolving hardware vulnerabilities has grown significantly.

The purpose of quantum computing is to significantly speed up intricate computations. Current encryption technologies will unavoidably be threatened by this progress. Even while algorithms like RSA and ECC have been around for a while and are reliable, they can still be readily thwarted. Creating new PQC encryption methods is necessary if the sector is to continue being resilient in the long run. Applications where encrypted data is captured with the hope that it can be decoded later will find this crucial. New technologies, on the other hand, might be susceptible to hardware-based attack techniques, even though they are thought to be resistant to post-quantum attacks.

This problem is addressed by Keysight Inspector, a component of the organization’s recently acquired device security research and testing facility Riscure. One of the PQC algorithms chosen by NIST, the Dilithium algorithm, can now be tested using the Keysight Inspector device security testing platform. Adopting this method in hardware enables designers to confirm that their products are safe from these attacks. Governmental agencies as well as security testing facilities that wish to confirm the robustness of products made by third parties will require the test solution.

With ongoing standardisation, Keysight expects dozens of new security algorithms to become available for multiple applications and industries. Ultimately, these algorithms will need verifiable implementations. Keysight will provide the necessary test tooling in addition to certification services through Keysight Inspector.

In addition, Keysight Inspector can also test the chips and analyze the silicon design before implementation by simulating the hardware code pre-silicon. Riscure has been working with PQShield, the leading developer of PQC solutions, to conduct both pre- and post-silicon analyses of their products.

Dr Axel Poschmann, Vice President of Product at PQShield, said: “Keysight will help us verify the robustness of our implementations at an early stage. Building on our original work with Riscure within the Keysight portfolio is exciting and we are looking forward to continuing this journey.”

Marc Witteman, Director of the Device Security Research Lab at Keysight, said: “Post-quantum resilience does not guarantee total security. We have observed incidents when the latest post-quantum encryption technology suffers from hardware-based threats. With this technology being implemented at a larger scale, the need for comprehensive testing becomes apparent. We are addressing this need by adding post-quantum algorithm testing capability to the Keysight Inspector solution, our comprehensive device security testing platform.”

Keysight will provide live demonstrations of the Keysight Inspector hacking a PQC implementation running on a popular processor at booth 4418 during the upcoming RSA Conference in San Francisco.