OptHQC: Optimize HQC for High-Performance Post-Quantum Cryptography
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866914201651380224 |
|---|---|
| author | Dong, Ben Feng, Hui Wang, Qian |
| author_facet | Dong, Ben Feng, Hui Wang, Qian |
| contents | As post-quantum cryptography (PQC) becomes increasingly critical for securing future communication systems, the performance overhead introduced by quantum-resistant algorithms presents a major computing challenge. HQC (Hamming Quasi-Cyclic) is a newly standardized code-based PQC scheme designed to replace classical key exchange methods. In this paper, we propose OptHQC, an optimized implementation of the HQC scheme to deliver high-performance cryptographic operations. Our approach provides a comprehensive analysis of each computational blocks in HQC and introduces optimizations across all three stages: key generation, encryption, and decryption. We first exploit data-level sparsity in vector multiplication to accelerate polynomial operations during vector generation. We then leverage instruction-level acceleration (e.g., AVX2) in hash computation to further improve performance. Last, we transform multiplication into lookup table indexing and optimize memory access patterns in syndrome computation and error vector recovery, which are the most computationally intensive operations in HQC. Overall, OptHQC achieves an average 55% speedup over the reference HQC implementation on CPU. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_12904 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | OptHQC: Optimize HQC for High-Performance Post-Quantum Cryptography Dong, Ben Feng, Hui Wang, Qian Cryptography and Security As post-quantum cryptography (PQC) becomes increasingly critical for securing future communication systems, the performance overhead introduced by quantum-resistant algorithms presents a major computing challenge. HQC (Hamming Quasi-Cyclic) is a newly standardized code-based PQC scheme designed to replace classical key exchange methods. In this paper, we propose OptHQC, an optimized implementation of the HQC scheme to deliver high-performance cryptographic operations. Our approach provides a comprehensive analysis of each computational blocks in HQC and introduces optimizations across all three stages: key generation, encryption, and decryption. We first exploit data-level sparsity in vector multiplication to accelerate polynomial operations during vector generation. We then leverage instruction-level acceleration (e.g., AVX2) in hash computation to further improve performance. Last, we transform multiplication into lookup table indexing and optimize memory access patterns in syndrome computation and error vector recovery, which are the most computationally intensive operations in HQC. Overall, OptHQC achieves an average 55% speedup over the reference HQC implementation on CPU. |
| title | OptHQC: Optimize HQC for High-Performance Post-Quantum Cryptography |
| topic | Cryptography and Security |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12904 |