Sent

To view complete details for this event, click here to view the announcement

Quantum Threats to Cryptography and Counter Measures

May Computer Society Talk Materials Available Online

The slides for our two previous talks in May, which included embedding user defined public keys into popular identity provider tokens for authentication (OpenPubKey) with Ethan Heilman and architecting hybrid networks with AWS Virtual Private Clouds with Tanvir Kaur, are now available on our website and IEEE Collabratec.

Call for Technical Event Proposals

If you would like to see technical events for a specific topic, or if you are interested in presenting at a technical event, please reach out to the chair for the NoVa/Washington Joint CS Society Chapter or reply to this e-mail. We are actively looking for technical speakers for the summer and fall and would be happy to help organize technical talks in either NoVa, Washington DC, or Maryland.

Post-Quantum Cryptography Talk

Join us for an exciting session as our speaker—Dr William Blair—walks us through the emerging quantum threat landscape. Learn how quantum algorithms like Shor’s and Grover’s challenge today’s cryptographic systems, and how the industry is responding with next-gen, quantum-resistant solutions. This talk will demystify core concepts in quantum computation and introduce NIST’s new cryptographic standards like ML-KEM and ML-DSA, offering practical insights into securing communication systems in the post-quantum era. Don’t miss this opportunity to get up to speed on one of the most pressing shifts in cybersecurity.

Date and Time

Date: 09 Jul 2025 Time: 09:00 PM EDT to 10:00 PM EDT

Location

  • This event has virtual attendance info. Please visit the event page to attend virtually.

Hosts

Registration

  • Starts 26 June 2025 05:00 PM EDT
  • Ends 09 July 2025 03:00 AM EDT
  • No Admission Charge

Abstract:
Over thirty years ago, Quantum Computing transformed from a creative approach to efficiently simulate quantum mechanical systems to an attack vector for breaking the foundations of modern cryptography. Far from a purely theoretical exercise, many organizations now compete to transition from noisy intermediate scale quantum computers to fully fault tolerant quantum computers capable enough to run these attacks. This threat against modern cryptography, particularly widely used asymmetric cryptographic algorithms vital to computing and communication systems, has motivated the development of alternative algorithms that are resilient to quantum computers.
 
This talk will provide an overview of the quantum threat to contemporary cryptographic schemes, including a basic overview of Quantum Computation and how major algorithms, including Shor's and Grover's algorithms, weaken widely used cryptography. An overview of counter measures to these attacks, including background on new cryptographic schemes standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will demonstrate how to secure communications and computer systems using algorithms that are believed to be resistant to quantum computers. These include the ML-KEM and ML-DSA standards, which rely on Module Learning with Errors (MLWE) to securely agree on ephemeral encryption keys and implement digital signatures, respectively. Alternative approaches, which achieve quantum resistance via Learning with Rounding (LWR) and cryptographic hash functions, will be briefly outlined as well.

Attachments:
Northern Virginia/Washington Jt Chapter, C16 : https://r2.ieee.org/wnv-cs/
Manage your IEEE Communication Preferences at the IEEE Privacy Portal