HQC: French technology at the heart of post-quantum cybersecurity
In 2016, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States launched a major international appeal to design the cryptographic systems of the future, capable of withstanding the power of quantum computers. These machines of the future could render obsolete the current protections for our communications, whether on the Internet, military networks or even satellites.
Among the solutions proposed, a 100% French protocol stood out: HQC (Hamming Quasi-Cyclic). Designed to withstand attacks from quantum computers, HQC enables two parties to share a secret – even if their exchange is being spied on – and then use it to encrypt their communications.
This ambitious project is being led by a consortium headed by Philippe Gaborit from the University of Limoges, joined by researchers from ISAE-SUPAERO and ENAC. Together, they have contributed to the development, optimisation and validation of this “post-quantum” cryptography solution.
International recognition
NIST recently announced the selection of HQC for future standardisation. This is a major achievement for this protocol, which is set to become a pillar of global cybersecurity for decades to come, particularly in sensitive sectors such as telecommunications.
Toulouse expertise on the front line
The success of HQC is based on the key contributions of several researchers from Toulouse:
- Carlos Aguilar, a professor in the DISC department at ISAE-SUPAERO from 2018 to 2022, is one of the founding members of the project. He was involved in the initial design of the algorithm and was one of the project’s main supporters throughout the standardisation phase.
- Jérôme Lacan, also a professor at ISAE-SUPAERO, worked on the error coding and decoding mechanism, an essential component of the system.
- Arnaud Dion, a teacher-researcher at ISAE-SUPAERO, produced a hardware implementation of the protocol on an integrated circuit, demonstrating its performance against other competing solutions.
We implemented the entire encryption/decryption algorithm directly in an integrated circuit. The aim was twofold: to prove that this algorithm could be embedded in a chip dedicated to cybersecurity, and to demonstrate its concrete performance. This meant completely rewriting the code to make it compatible with a hardware architecture, while ensuring that this implementation could be easily reproduced by an industrial company.
An international team coordinated by Limoges
Coordinator : Philippe Gaborit, University of Limoges
HQC project partners (4ᵉ round):
Carlos Aguilar Melchor (SandBox) Nicolas Aragon (University of Limoges - Xlim Institute) Slim Bettaieb, Loïc Bidoux (Technology Innovation Institute, UAE) Olivier Blazy (École Polytechnique - CNRS/LIX) Jurjen Bos (Worldline, NL) Jean-Christophe Deneuville (ENAC, University of Toulouse) Arnaud Dion, Jérôme Lacan (ISAE-SUPAERO, University of Toulouse) Edoardo Persichetti (Florida Atlantic University, US) Jean-Marc Robert, Pascal Véron (University of Toulon - Mathematics Institute) Gilles Zémor (University of Bordeaux - Bordeaux Mathematics Institute)
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