Physically Unclonable Function (PUF)-Based Key Generation for Cryptographic Schemes with Multiple Hashing of Private Keys

Description

Interest in hash-based cryptography (HBC) has increased as one possible path to design quantum computing-resistant cryptographic schemes. However, use of existing HBC schemes is mainly restricted to digital signature algorithms (DSA). This technology utilizes the combination of HBC with physical unclonable functions (PUFs) to eliminate the need to exchange long public keys, making the encryption of long messages practical. PUFs contain “wallets” of keys that are addressable through a handshake with a server. Rather than exchanging keys through unsecured communication channels, both parties independently exchange random numbers and instructions and generate the keys directly from their wallets. Therefore, large numbers of keys are available for the hash-based cryptography while the traffic of data through the communication channel remains small and secure.

Additional information