New Competition Focuses on Hardening Cryptosystems

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a global scientific research center and the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, has launched a series of cryptography challenges aimed at evaluating the McEliece cryptosystem. TII will publish multiple McEliece-based cryptanalysis problems focused on theoretical key recovery algorithms, practical key recovery, and message recovery.

The McEliece cryptosystem is an asymmetric encryption algorithm that uses randomization in the encryption process. While the algorithm is not as widely used as other asymmetric encryption schemes, it is a fourth-round candidate (Classic McEliece Submission) of the current NIST PQC standardization effort for post-quantum secure schemes because it is immune to some types of attacks.

Participants in the year-long challenges will be able to validate the security of the McEliece cryptosystem and identify possible weaknesses, TII said. The competition will focus on innovative approaches to test the McEliece cryptosystem as a leading candidate for post-quantum encryption.

"TII’s challenges aim to strengthen the understanding of cryptosystems that are used globally on a daily basis to protect the privacy of individuals and corporations and keep their conversations and data confidential," the center said.

The TII McEliece Challenges are open to individuals, students, scientists, cryptographers, researchers, and subject matter experts – pretty much anyone with an interest in cryptography. Winners are paid out of a prize pool of $75,000. Preregistration is open, and submission forms will be available online May 23.