Author: Tristen Teague | Majors: Computer Engineering | Semester: Spring 2022

My name is Tristen Teague and I’m a senior in Computer Engineering within the Computer Science and Computer Engineering department. During this research, I was advised by Dr. Alexander Nelson of the CSCE department since late Fall of 2020. During the Spring 2022 semester, I implemented the Post-Quantum Cryptography algorithm Saber on the ChipWhisperer tool with both unprotected and protected implementations on the Cortex-M4 platform.

Tristen Teague

Cryptography algorithms protect our data (such as bank account passwords) using encryption through mathematical problems that are difficult to solve. With the advancements of the quantum computer, quantum algorithms such as Shor’s and Grover’s algorithm may prove to be a threat to our current standard asymmetric cryptography algorithms. With this threat, a new class of cryptography algorithms named Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to withstand attacks against both classical and quantum computers. A class of attacks known as side-channel attacks involves exploiting the hardware and have the possibility of breaking new PQC algorithms.

I feel like any sentence with the word “quantum” sounds cool and that was the initial first main reason why I chose the topic of doing research on Post-Quantum Cryptography. I was looking for an Honors topic to pick and Dr. Nelson instantly hooked me with the name and duties involved with the project. While doing this project, I’ve learned that the complexity behind cryptography is much more complicated than I thought. I assumed that my math minor was enough to understand what’s happening behind these new PQC algorithms, but I was mistaken. I also learned with the side-channel attacks and countermeasures that many branches of mathematics are involved such as statistics and abstract algebra. Implementing the algorithms onto different platforms is also a whole another beast of a problem. Cryptography is a field which requires multiple disciplines in order to effectively implement and improve itself. A whole team of mathematicians will not be sufficient to work on cryptography. Since I’m a computer engineer, I only understand my side of the field and do not fully understand the other aspects. I attempted to overcome my lack of knowledge by reading other academic papers that talked about certain subjects.

Another challenge I faced was my lack of knowledge on programming when starting this project in 2020. Before I started this research, I only had a semester worth of knowledge of the C programming language. I would need to know the basics of linear algebra, embedded systems, firmware engineering, and cryptography. For me to quickly pick up ideas from those topics, I got help from everybody on my team. The three faculty members Dr. Nelson, Dr. Huang, and Dr. Andrews and the two graduate students Michael Fahr and Tendayi Kamucheka all gave me helpful insight. Without them, I would have not picked up these topics fast enough to contribute to the project. Learning from people who have more experience is a great way of learning things rather than just independent learning.

Doing research in Post-Quantum Cryptography gave me a strong interest in security.  After this semester, I will be doing an internship with Arm in security architecture with the Cortex-A chips. I will bring many of the things I’ve learned from this research to Arm, and I believe it will make me very successful.