In recent times, hacker attacks have become a hard reality for industrial operations wherein they have faced attackers trying to shut down whole factories or steal information on manufacturing processes. To prevent such incidents, communication within the chips present in individual components is encrypted. However, experts believe that in some time, these encryption algorithms would no longer work. This is because the processes that fight against attacks would only work for the computers technology currently present and be defenceless in front of quantum computers. The situation is rather dire, especially in the case of industrial facilities with equipment that have a long lifespan.
To solve this problem, security experts around the globe have been working on the creation of such technical standards which would cater to “post-quantum cryptography.” The biggest hurdle in between is the enormous processing power that is needed for encryption methods.
Now a research team might have shed some light on the solution by designing and commissioning the production of a computer chip with the ability to implement post-quantum cryptography efficiently. The innovation would be a huge contribution to the Quantum Cryptography Market as such chips could protect against hacking incidents in the future involving quantum computers. Furthermore, the researchers also managed to incorporate hardware Trojans inside the chip to understand methods that would help identify Trojan viruses from the chip factory.
Researchers stated that their novel technology is almost ten times faster when Kyber encryption is used, which one of the most promising in post-quantum cryptography. The stats are against encryptions based on software solutions. Moreover, the present technology also uses eight times less energy while being equally flexible.
One of the biggest threats rising simultaneously to conventional attacks is hardware Trojans. Computer chips usually need to be produced in accordance with companies’ requirements and are then specialized in factories as per their needs. In case attackers succeed in planting a Trojan in the chip design before or while the manufacturing process is ongoing, it could turn out to be disastrous. Incidents involving external hacker attacks could be even grimmer for factories leading to complete shutdown, or the manufacturing process could be stolen. The most noteworthy point is that Trojans built within hardware can easily dodge post-quantum cryptography.
The team said that there is very little knowledge about the ways in which Trojans in used by hackers. So, for developing protective measures, one needs to think exactly like the attackers and try to develop and conceal the viruses on our own. In the presently proposed post-quantum chip, the team incorporated four hardware Trojans, all of which work in completely different ways.
In the near future, the team revealed that they would undertake intense tests to evaluate the cryptographic capabilities, detect ability of the hardware Trojans, and functionality of the chip. The development could help make future hardware production more secure, especially for industrial facilities as well as cars.