Technology Innovation Institute unveils software library for cryptographic hardness estimation

CryptographicEstimators assesses Post-Quantum Cryptography schemes’ security

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a leading global scientific research centre and the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has announced that its Cryptography Research Center (CRC) has launched CryptographicEstimators, the world’s first open-source software library entirely dedicated to estimating the security of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) schemes, including essential exchange methods, public key encryption and signatures.

Cryptographic estimations are often performed ad-hoc, producing non-standardised estimation scripts that deliver varying outcomes for the same problems.

This method poses an obstacle to reaching a consensus around the hardness of cryptographic problems.

Reliable access point

As TII’s latest contribution to cryptographic research and standardisation, CryptographicEstimators addresses the need for a reliable point of access for concrete security estimates by consolidating existing estimators and providing the foundation for newly designed ones.

This approach helps public key scheme designers select secure parameters and supports cryptanalysts in assessing their findings against established benchmarks.

Also, unlike similar projects that only evaluate single classes of hardness assumptions, such as lattice-based assumptions, CryptographicEstimators aims at the full spectrum of post-quantum secure foundations, currently including multivariate and code-based problems, along with some of their variants.

Library access

Researchers can easily extend the library to accommodate other cryptographic assumptions.

Dr Najwa Aaraj, Chief Researcher, CRC, said: “The introduction of the CryptographicEstimators library is critical in this critical moment, where we see ongoing efforts of the American National Institute of Standard and Technologies (NIST) in standardising PQC. CryptographicEstimators, a unique, state-of-the-art cryptographic tool, positions TII as a prime mover in the PQC domain and solidifies the UAE’s role as an important stakeholder in advancing the PQC ecosystem.”

CryptographicEstimators complements TII’s other initiatives in the cryptography sphere, such as the TII-McEliece Challenges, the new digital signatures submitted to NIST, and the creation of the first PQC software library in the UAE, on top of ongoing research on PQC.

The CRC designs the building blocks of advanced cryptographic and cryptanalytic mechanisms that enable advanced data privacy, integrity, confidentiality, and non-repudiation. 

Working with leading research advisors and institutions, the CRC aims to research new cryptographic primitives covering design, analysis, implementation, and hardness and develop security protocols. 

CryptographicEstimators is available on the internet and as an open-source software with a GPLv3 licence.

Featured image: Cryptography Research Center designs the building blocks of advanced cryptographic and cryptanalytic mechanisms. Image: TII