Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Network Instrument: Measuring PQC Adoption Rates and Identifying Migration Pathways

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sowa, Jakub, Hoang, Bach, Yeluru, Advaith, Qie, Steven, Nikolich, Anita, Iyer, Ravishankar, Cao, Phuong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Sowa, Jakub
Hoang, Bach
Yeluru, Advaith
Qie, Steven
Nikolich, Anita
Iyer, Ravishankar
Cao, Phuong
author_facet Sowa, Jakub
Hoang, Bach
Yeluru, Advaith
Qie, Steven
Nikolich, Anita
Iyer, Ravishankar
Cao, Phuong
contents The problem of adopting quantum-resistant cryptographic network protocols or post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is critically important to democratizing quantum computing. The problem is urgent because practical quantum computers will break classical encryption in the next few decades. Past encrypted data has already been collected and can be decrypted in the near future. The main challenges of adopting post-quantum cryptography lie in algorithmic complexity and hardware/software/network implementation. The grand question of how existing cyberinfrastructure will support post-quantum cryptography remains unanswered. This paper describes: i) the design of a novel Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) network instrument placed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a part of the FABRIC testbed; ii) the latest results on PQC adoption rate across a wide spectrum of network protocols (Secure Shell -- SSH, Transport Layer Security -- TLS, etc.); iii) the current state of PQC implementation in key scientific applications (e.g., OpenSSH or SciTokens); iv) the challenges of being quantum-resistant; and v) discussion of potential novel attacks. This is the first large-scale measurement of PQC adoption at national-scale supercomputing centers and FABRIC testbeds. Our results show that only OpenSSH and Google Chrome have successfully implemented PQC and achieved an initial adoption rate of 0.029% (6,044 out of 20,556,816) for OpenSSH connections at NCSA coming from major Internet Service Providers or Autonomous Systems (ASes) such as OARNET, GTT, Google Fiber Webpass (U.S.) and Uppsala Lans Landsting (Sweden), with an overall increasing adoption rate year-over-year for 2023-2024. Our analyses identify pathways to migrate current applications to be quantum-resistant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_00054
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Network Instrument: Measuring PQC Adoption Rates and Identifying Migration Pathways
Sowa, Jakub
Hoang, Bach
Yeluru, Advaith
Qie, Steven
Nikolich, Anita
Iyer, Ravishankar
Cao, Phuong
Networking and Internet Architecture
Cryptography and Security
Quantum Physics
The problem of adopting quantum-resistant cryptographic network protocols or post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is critically important to democratizing quantum computing. The problem is urgent because practical quantum computers will break classical encryption in the next few decades. Past encrypted data has already been collected and can be decrypted in the near future. The main challenges of adopting post-quantum cryptography lie in algorithmic complexity and hardware/software/network implementation. The grand question of how existing cyberinfrastructure will support post-quantum cryptography remains unanswered. This paper describes: i) the design of a novel Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) network instrument placed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a part of the FABRIC testbed; ii) the latest results on PQC adoption rate across a wide spectrum of network protocols (Secure Shell -- SSH, Transport Layer Security -- TLS, etc.); iii) the current state of PQC implementation in key scientific applications (e.g., OpenSSH or SciTokens); iv) the challenges of being quantum-resistant; and v) discussion of potential novel attacks. This is the first large-scale measurement of PQC adoption at national-scale supercomputing centers and FABRIC testbeds. Our results show that only OpenSSH and Google Chrome have successfully implemented PQC and achieved an initial adoption rate of 0.029% (6,044 out of 20,556,816) for OpenSSH connections at NCSA coming from major Internet Service Providers or Autonomous Systems (ASes) such as OARNET, GTT, Google Fiber Webpass (U.S.) and Uppsala Lans Landsting (Sweden), with an overall increasing adoption rate year-over-year for 2023-2024. Our analyses identify pathways to migrate current applications to be quantum-resistant.
title Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Network Instrument: Measuring PQC Adoption Rates and Identifying Migration Pathways
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Cryptography and Security
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.00054