Quantum-Proof Math Gets a $400,000 Boost as NSF Funds FAU’s Next-Generation Cryptography Push

Quantum computers are still years away from threatening the internet’s locks, but the race to replace those locks is already in full swing. Florida Atlantic University has received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to design a new generation of cryptographic protocols that could keep digital communications secure even in a world where quantum computers can break today’s encryption. The award funds a project titled “Collaborative Research: SaTC 2.0: RES: Post-Quantum Cryptographic Protocols with Advanced Functionalities,” and it signals that the post-quantum transition is moving beyond its first, defensive phase into something far more ambitious.

The project is led by principal investigator Edoardo Persichetti, Ph.D., a professor in FAU’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics and director of the university’s Center for Cryptology and Information Security within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. Co-principal investigator is Veronika Kuchta, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the same department. Together, the team will build the mathematical foundations for post-quantum protocols that offer advanced capabilities rather than just basic protection, aiming to strengthen digital security as quantum technology advances and to develop more efficient, scalable tools for safeguarding information in complex security applications.

To understand why this matters, it helps to look at how most of today’s public-key cryptography works. The security of the systems protecting online banking, messaging and commerce rests on mathematical problems that are easy to compute in one direction but extraordinarily hard to reverse with conventional computers, such as factoring enormous numbers or computing discrete logarithms. In 1994, mathematician Peter Shor showed that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running his algorithm could solve those problems efficiently, which means a mature quantum machine could theoretically unravel the public-key infrastructure the digital world depends on. Post-quantum cryptography responds by building new methods on mathematical problems believed to remain hard even for quantum attackers.

Recent international efforts, including the standardization process run by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, have concentrated on the foundational primitives of that new arsenal: encryption schemes and digital signatures. But many emerging applications demand more sophisticated machinery. Decentralized systems, privacy-preserving technologies and multi-party protocols need cryptographic tools that do far more than encrypt a message or sign a document. The FAU research targets precisely this gap, designing and analyzing post-quantum protocols that can deliver advanced functions for applications where multiple parties must interact securely while protecting sensitive information and verifying the integrity of digital processes.

“This NSF support gives us an opportunity to take the next step in post-quantum cryptography by moving beyond basic encryption and signatures toward more advanced protocols that can address the increasingly complex security needs of emerging technologies,” said Persichetti. “The grant will allow us to develop new cryptographic constructions, rigorously analyze their security and investigate how they can be made more efficient and scalable. It also will help us train the next generation of researchers in an area that will be increasingly important as quantum computing advances.”

The technical heart of the project lies in algebraic structures drawn from several mathematical frameworks, including lattices, error-correcting codes, group actions and isogeny-based cryptography. Lattices, for instance, underpin schemes whose security rests on the difficulty of finding the shortest vector in a high-dimensional grid, a problem with no known efficient quantum solution. Code-based cryptography, meanwhile, leans on the decades-old difficulty of decoding arbitrary linear error-correcting codes, while isogeny-based approaches exploit the intricate structure of mappings between elliptic curves. By working across these families, the researchers can compare trade-offs in key sizes, computational cost and security assumptions, and combine their strengths in hybrid constructions.

On top of these foundations, the team will investigate protocols supporting advanced cryptographic functions such as blind signatures, threshold signatures, multisignatures and verifiable random functions. A blind signature allows someone to obtain a signed document without the signer seeing its contents, a property crucial for private electronic voting and anonymous credentials. Threshold signatures distribute signing power among several parties so that only an authorized subset acting together can produce a valid signature, eliminating single points of failure. Multisignatures compress the approvals of many participants into one compact object, and verifiable random functions generate randomness that anyone can check was computed honestly, a building block for blockchain consensus and secure lotteries. Making all of these quantum-resistant, efficient and scalable is a formidable mathematical challenge.

A vital component of the work will be the development of rigorous security proofs grounded in well-defined computational assumptions, the gold standard that separates genuine cryptographic guarantees from wishful thinking. The researchers will also employ zero-knowledge proofs, which let one party convince another that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the truth of the statement itself, along with group-action frameworks that provide a clean algebraic language for constructing such proofs. The emphasis throughout will be on improving efficiency, security and scalability, because a protocol that is provably secure but too slow or too bulky for real systems protects nothing in practice.

The award builds on FAU’s growing national leadership in the field. Persichetti has played a significant role in preparing cryptographic systems for the quantum era: he submitted four algorithms to NIST’s post-quantum cryptography competition, three of which advanced to the final round, and his Hamming Quasi-Cyclic (HQC) algorithm was ultimately selected by NIST for standardization as part of its Post-Quantum Cryptography project. HQC, a code-based scheme, is designed to provide secure key exchange while protecting communications against attacks from future quantum computers. Notably, FAU is the only university in the United States represented among the authors of the two key-encapsulation mechanisms NIST selected for standardization, HQC and ML-KEM, and FAU faculty have also contributed to the CRYSTALS-DILITHIUM digital signature algorithm, another NIST selection. “This new NSF award builds directly on the expertise and research foundation we have developed through our work in post-quantum cryptography,” said Persichetti. “The selection of HQC for standardization demonstrated the importance of developing cryptographic systems that can withstand quantum threats. This project expands that effort into advanced functionalities that will be needed to protect increasingly sophisticated digital systems in the years ahead.”

Beyond the mathematics, the grant carries an investment in people. The project will support training and mentoring students through research experiences and outreach activities, cultivating the next generation of cryptographers and cybersecurity researchers who will confront security challenges that do not yet fully exist. “This award reflects Florida Atlantic’s growing strength at the intersection of mathematics, cryptography, cybersecurity and emerging technologies,” said Valery Forbes, Ph.D., dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “Our faculty are not only contributing to the development of technologies designed to protect the nation’s digital infrastructure but are helping shape the next generation of post-quantum security. With nationally recognized research such as the work of Dr. Persichetti and our cryptography team, FAU is at the forefront of this rapidly evolving field.” The effort also aligns with FAU’s broader identity as Florida’s first quantum university: through its Center for Quantum Technologies, the institution unites faculty, students and industry partners to advance quantum research, and its Boca Raton campus now hosts a D-Wave Advantage2 annealing quantum computer, giving researchers hands-on access to leading-edge quantum hardware. As quantum computing inches closer to practical reality, work like this ensures that when the quantum era arrives, the mathematics defending the world’s data will already be waiting for it.

Subject of Research: Post-quantum cryptography protocol design funded by a National Science Foundation grant at Florida Atlantic University

Article Title: FAU receives $400,000 NSF grant to advance post-quantum cryptography

Article References: FAU receives $400,000 NSF grant to advance post-quantum cryptography. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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Keywords: post-quantum cryptography, quantum computing, NSF grant, Florida Atlantic University, cryptography, lattices, error-correcting codes, zero-knowledge proofs, digital signatures, NIST standardization, cybersecurity, HQC