Grandstand. With the advent of the quantum computer, current cryptographic tools are becoming vulnerable and will have to be replaced by so-called post-quantum systems. The post-quantum, long confined to a restricted community of researchers, has suddenly shifted towards a major industrial subject that concerns us all.
The economic impact of cryptographic systems found in all online transactions or by bank cards, for example, is colossal. In 2018, a study estimated that the creation of the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), a “pre-quantum” secret key encryption standard published by NIST, the American standards agency, in the early 2000s, created a market of at least 250 billion dollars between 1996 and 2017. The fallout should be much greater for post-quantum.
To prepare for this, in 2017, NIST initiated a process to renew current public-key cryptography standards with new post-quantum algorithms. After three years and several stages of selection, the announcement of the winners is expected in the coming days.
A tool for economic conquest
Completing NIST’s post-quantum process is only a first step in rolling out this next-generation cryptography. All security protocols must now adapt to these new standards. The work is colossal and many other standards organizations are currently working on integrating postquantum into various protocols. In particular, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is the European standardization organization which is today the most active in post-quantum.
This standard must also be understood as a tool for economic conquest: who controls the standard controls the market. However, post-quantum standardization remains a weak point in European industrial ambitions and technological sovereignty.
However, Europe is aware of the importance of this aspect, as Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, reminded us: “ Technology standards are strategically important. Europe’s technological sovereignty, its ability to reduce dependencies and protect European Union values will depend on our ability to be a global standards body. »
The new Commission text provides for the mandatory involvement of national standardization agencies, such as Afnor, in the definition of a European standard
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