The University of South Florida’s Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity
and Computing is joining forces with Cisco Research and leading researchers from Purdue,
Rutgers and Northeastern to prepare for the next wave of cyberthreats in post-quantum
cybersecurity.
The collaboration, funded by a $50,000 Cisco research grant, brings together experts
from academia and industry to develop quantum-resistant networks and protocols, vital
defenses against the kinds of attacks quantum computers could unleash in the future.
The research grant, “Quantum-Resistant Networks and Systems: Primitives, Protocols,
and Best Practices,” was awarded to a group of faculty from four major universities:
Principal Investigator Elisa Bertino at Purdue, Jaideep Vaidya at Rutgers, Christina
Nita-Rotaru at Northeastern, and Attila A. Yavuz at USF. Ashish Kundu leads the project
at Cisco Research.
“The goal is to influence real-world standards and protocols for post-quantum secure
systems deployed in routers, servers and global networks,” Yavuz, an associate professor
in the USF Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing,
said.
The four faculty members and their labs plan to establish a consortium within Cisco’s
global post-quantum security working group. “Our complementary expertise drives this
goal forward,” Yavuz said.
Each member leads work in a distinct domain. Yavuz specializes in applied cryptography,
designing algorithms that are resistant to both quantum and classical attacks, and
integrating these techniques into networked systems such as autonomous vehicles, satellites
and 5G cellular networks.
Strengthening defenses for a quantum future
For researchers like Yavuz, cybersecurity research is about more than just combating
present threats. It is a constant effort to stay ahead of the curve, at the cutting
edge, where theoretical threats and real-world adversaries present looming danger.
As part of the grant, the fourth awarded to the researcher since 2019, Yavuz’s team
collaborates closely with Cisco’s research group to analyze and test its cybersecurity
solutions. They assess Cisco’s protocols for vulnerabilities, reinforce them against
potential quantum-enabled attacks, and develop new algorithms tailored to various
network and system architectures.
Why quantum computing changes the cybersecurity game
The initiative, supported by Cisco’s Head of Research, Ramana Kompella, and led by
the Head of Cybersecurity Research at Cisco Research, Ashish Kundu, demonstrates the
tech giant’s commitment to making a significant impact in this field.
That’s because these threats are not limited to credit card theft or blackmail. Critical
infrastructures such as smart grid systems are also vulnerable. For example, these
systems distribute energy to cities across the globe and require public internet infrastructure.
If a bad actor can get a key, they can compromise the system to cause failures and
grid overload.
That uncertain future is rapidly approaching with advances in artificial intelligence
and quantum computing. Quantum computers use principles of quantum mechanics such
as superposition and entanglement to create qubits, which can exist in combinations
of 0 and 1 states simultaneously. This allows certain algorithms to solve problems,
including the factoring of large numbers, much more efficiently than classical computers.
As a result, many widely used public key cryptographic systems are at risk, and the
transition to quantum-resistant cybersecurity methods has become essential.
Yavuz said that traditional cybersecurity relies on two pillars: public key encryption
and digital signatures. These are created using some highly difficult mathematical
problems, also referred to as intractable problems, for traditional computers. However,
large-scale quantum computers can solve some of them, such as “factorization of large
integers into prime factors” and “discrete logarithm problem.”
“To the best of our knowledge, there are no fully functional and large-scale quantum
computers yet. However, the field is evolving very rapidly, and this threat does exist
at least with state-level adversaries,” Yavuz explained. “Whenever we enter the internet
and perform a credit card payment, all these protocols need authentication provided
by digital signatures, which serve as our identity. An adversary with an operational
quantum computer could extract someone’s key and create fake certificates and identities.”
Cisco Research is pursuing a multi-faceted approach to address quantum computer threats.
They are working on adapting NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography (NIST-PQC) standards and
also designing quantum key management methods that do not necessarily depend on NIST
PQC to provide additional security. Yavuz will focus on analyzing these solutions
and customizing the NIST PQC standards with a specialized design.
Partnerships that drive research impact and student success
Industry-academic partnerships like this benefit both the company and the institution,
as well as the student researchers working on them.
“I have received five unrestricted grants from Robert Bosch,” Yavuz said. “That created
a very significant impact with publications and patents. One of my students is now
a tenure-track professor who started with an internship with Bosch.”
Yavuz predicts a similar impact with Cisco in the development of new publications
and applications that can make a practical and intellectual impact.
“Industry standards meeting the highest academic research standards improve the quality
of both,” he said. “From an educational point of view, collaboration like this contributes
to training the next generation of cybersecurity experts. Aspects of our research
are integrated as a course module into our courses for both undergraduate and graduate
students.”
The work is not kept in a silo. Alongside Alongside Kundu from Cisco Research and
Nita-Rotaru from Northeastern, Yavuz will co-chair the ACM Conference on Computer
and Communications Security Workshop on Quantum-Resistant Cryptography and Security
held in Taiwan in October, representing USF in a global academic setting.