Post-Quantum Cryptography Gets Performance Testing Capability

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) helps protect systems from cyberattacks, including those by quantum computers that could break the public-key encryption that currently protects sensitive data.

While sufficiently powerful quantum computers are some years away, organizations are being urged to move toward PQC now to counter hackers stealing data and decrypting it when they are available. These types of cyberattacks are known as harvest (or store) now, decrypt later threats.  

The U.S. federal government has mandated the migration of all existing public-key cryptographic systems to PQC. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization program has introduced PQC algorithms that will become part of its cryptographic standard.

However, introducing PQC protocols risks slowing network performance and affecting customer experience.

Viavi Solutions, a company that provides network testing and monitoring technology, has added a PQC performance monitoring capability to its TeraVM Security Test software to measure the effect of introducing PQC.

TeraVM Security Test is a software-based test tool that can run on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) servers or cloud platforms. It emulates large-scale user endpoint traffic applications over secure access connections and measures individual traffic flow performance.

Related:Ericsson Gives PQC Progress Report at Mobile World Congress

According to the company, it is the first cloud-enabled test platform to support the PQC algorithms mandated by NIST.

“Our customers have announced significant initiatives to secure their networks from post-quantum threats without compromising their users’ workday experience,” said Ian Langley, Viavi senior vice president and general manager.

“TeraVM Security Test will give them confidence in their capabilities through rigorous testing using standardized algorithms, emulated users, real office applications and loaded networks.”