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After AES, NIST is Defining the Next Great Standard for Encryption … Light-weight Crypto

Prof Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE

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NIST has created a number of competitions around the standardization of cryptography. This included select Rindael for the AES standard and Keccak for the SHA-3 method. Currently, they have reached the final stage for two important standards: post-quantum cryptography; and light-weight cryptography. The finalists for light-weight cryptography are [here]:

  • ASCON. ASCON implements a hashing method for a 256-bit hash, and uses a 320-bit permutation. It was created by Christoph Dobraunig Maria Eichlseder Florian Mendel and Martin Schläffer [link]. ASCON can also be used to create authenticated encryption [link].
  • Elephant. In Cybersecurity, Where Would You Find Dumbo, Jumbo and a Pink Elephant?[link].
  • GIFT-COFB. GIFT: A Small Present for Cybersecurity and IoT: here.
  • Grain128-AEAD. Grain is a Light Weight Stream Cipher and was written by Martin Hell, Thomas Johansson and Willi Meier. It has a relatively low gate count, power consumption and memory. It has an 80-bit key, and has two shift registers and a nonlinear output function [paper][link].
  • ISAP. Isap is a light weight block cipher and was written by Christoph Dobraunig, Maria Eichlseder, Stefan Mangard, Florian Mendel, Bart Mennink, Robert Primas…

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Prof Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE
Prof Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE

Written by Prof Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE

Professor of Cryptography. Serial innovator. Believer in fairness, justice & freedom. Based in Edinburgh. Old World Breaker. New World Creator. Building trust.

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