Towards Standardization of Threshold cryptography at NIST (G23c)
The computer security Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is taking steps toward the standardization of threshold schemes for cryptographic primitives. These schemes have the potential to mitigate breakdowns that result from differences between ideal and real implementations of cryptographic algorithms. They can be used to strengthen the secrecy of cryptographic keys, as well as enhancing integrity and availability of implemented primitives, including providing resistance against side-channel attacks that exploit inadvertent leakage from real implementations.
NIST released in July 2018 a report to motivate the community of stakeholders to engage in the process of standardization. A main initial goal is the development of criteria for selection and evaluation of new schemes. Particular challenges include finding an appropriate balance of flexibility and granularity of the elements to standardize, considering the wide domain of possible characteriz
ing features, and ensuring ways to enable automated validation of implementations. To promote discussion with stakeholders, NIST organized a two-day workshop on Threshold Cryptography (March 2019), for participation with members from the academia, industry and government.
In this presentation, we will describe the steps taken so far in the Threshold Cryptography project at NIST, the lessons learned in our interaction with the community, the upcoming steps, challenges and opportunities, and a vision for what lies ahead.