Samsung SDS to collaborate with NIST in post-quantum cryptography

Samsung SDS Co. announced on Thursday it will participate in the Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) project hosted by the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States. 

NIST is a non-regulatory agency under the US Department of Commerce.

Samsung is the only South Korean company working on the project, along with 13 other global vendors including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Systems, and Microsoft.

PQC is widely regarded as a technology to replace existing public-key encryption systems, which some experts say will become ineffective as quantum computing technology evolves.

This project aims to detect devices and applications equipped with existing cryptographic systems that are vulnerable to quantum-powered cyberattacks and to help migrate such systems to PQC. 

Samsung SDS will take part in the project by applying its cryptographic technology to the firewall products of its security subsidiary SECUI to detect vulnerabilities in the existing cryptographic methods and support the conversion process to PQC through research.

Moreover, as many companies are migrating their legacy systems to the cloud, the Samsung subsidiary plans to support the conversion of the existing cryptography system to PQC in customers’ cloud infrastructure and applications.

Samsung SDS also claims that it deepened its capabilities in PQC and homomorphic cryptography with its experts in the security domain through its Security Research Center. 

Homomorphic cryptography, a technology that analyzes and processes data in an encrypted form to safely secure sensitive information such as personal information, is also a promising next-generation technology. 

“We look forward to contributing our security capabilities and technologies to the NCCoE’s Migration to PQC project,” executive vice president and leader of technology research at Samsung SDS Sangwook Lee said. “We will collaborate with other participating vendors in accelerating research on PQC technology and product development.”

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.