Hardware Implementations of the McEliece Cryptosystem for Post Quantum Cryptography

Abstract

The ever-evolving threat landscape of cybersecurity has shown us that no bit of information is secure once enough time has elapsed. New methods of attack, analysis, and advancements in technology regularly break old cryptographic methods. Advancements in quantum computing are now becoming a concern for the security of our asymmetric cryptography. Quantum algorithms will drastically reduce the complexity of solving the underlying security primitives and have created the need for quantum-resistant cryptosystems. The NIST PQC is an ongoing process of selecting a quantum-resistant standard for asymmetric cryptography. One of the candidates to the NIST PQC is Classic McEliece, a system based on the now 40-year-old code-based McEliece. Despite its age, the McEliece cryptosystem with binary Goppa code is still regarded as secure and quantum-resistant with proper parameter choices. This thesis outlines how linear codes can be used to construct cryptographic schemes. It performs a performance comparison of the software and hardware implementations of the code-based candidates Classic McEliece, BIKE, and HQC. Finally, the hardware implementation of Classic McEliece was examined in the search for alternative designs and improvements. Some potential improvements were found, and some alternate designs performed poorly, thus reaffirming the choices of the Classic McEliece