Ruben Gonzalez and Krijn Reijnders
Post-quantum crypto is being rolled out to secure **you** from quantum computers! Unfortunately, few people know how post-quantum works. Let's change that!
In this zero-to-hero talk we'll dive into the inner workings of Kyber, a prominent member of the post-quantum family.
Post-Quantum Crypto is the art of inventing asymmetric cryptography that can withstand large quantum computers. This relatively young subject becomes more and more relevant as [Shor’s algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm) would break all of today’s asymmetric cryptography once a large enough quantum computer can be build.
Therefore RSA, Elliptic Curve Crypto, Diffie-Hellman, DSA and friends could soon be obsolete.
Kyber (formerly known as New Hope) is among the first post-quantum schemes to be standardized and already found its way into products. As a lattice-based system, Kyber is fast and its security guarantees are linked to an NP-hard problem. Also, it has all the nice mathematical ingredients to confuse the hell out of you: vectors of odd-looking polynomials, algebraic rings, error terms and a security reduction to “module lattices”.
This talk will introduce you to the world of post-quantum cryptography by giving a hands-on tutorial on how its most prominent member - Kyber - works. We'll start with high school level mathematics and work our way up to constructing Kyber. By constructing such a toy-sized Kyber, we can learn how the system works, comprehend its design decisions and see how it is related to an NP-hard problem.
After that we’ll take a brief look into how PQC will change real world cryptography in the near future.