An industry first! Electronic measurement industry leader launches PQC test function

Keysite Technologies has announced the launch of an industry-first testing feature designed to test the robustness of post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Keysight Inspector's latest feature is a significant extension to the comprehensive platform that helps device and chip vendors identify and fix hardware vulnerabilities.

Quantum computing aims to dramatically accelerate complex calculations. This development will inevitably threaten existing encryption technologies, which means developing new PQC encryption algorithms. However, new technologies that are thought to be resistant to post-quantum attacks may be vulnerable to existing hardware-based attack methods.

The new Keysight Inspector, launched after the recent acquisition of Riscure, enables device and chip vendors to identify and fix hardware vulnerabilities during the design cycle.

Keysight Inspector, part of Riscure, the company's recently acquired device safety research and testing lab, aims to address this challenge. The Keysight Inspector device security test platform is now available to test the implementation of the Dilithium algorithm, one of the PQC algorithms selected by NIST.

For those who adopt the algorithm in hardware, this enables designers to verify that the product is resistant to these threats. The testing solution is also required for government agencies and security testing laboratories that want to verify the strength of third-party products.

Dilithium is a digital signature scheme with strong security against selected message attacks based on the hardness of the lattice problem on the module lattice. The security concept means that an adversary with access to a signature predictor cannot generate a signature for a message that he has not yet seen signed, nor can he generate a different signature for a message that he has seen signed.

In addition, Keysight Inspector can test the chip and analyze the chip design by simulating the hardware code before the chip is implemented. Riscure has been working with PQShield, a leading developer of PQC solutions, to perform pre - and post-shoot analysis on its products.

Marc Witteman, director of Keysight's Device Security Research Lab, said: "Post-quantum resilience is not a guarantee of complete security. We have observed incidents in which the latest post-quantum encryption technology has suffered from hardware-based threats.

As this technology is implemented on a large scale, the need for comprehensive testing becomes apparent. We are addressing this need by adding post-quantum algorithm testing capabilities to our comprehensive device security test platform, Keysight Inspector Solutions."

During the upcoming RSA Conference in San Francisco, Keysight will be presenting a live demonstration of Keysight Inspector's PQC implementation running on popular processors at Booth 4418.

Reference:

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/about/newsroom/news-releases/2024/3004-PR24-062-Keysight-Introduces-New-Testing-Capabilities-to-Strengthen-Post-Quantum-Cryptography.html

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/learn/hubs/quantum.html