On the importance of cryptographic agility for industrial automation
Sebastian Paul, Melanie Niethammer · at - Automatisierungstechnik · 2019
Abstract Cryptographic primitives do not remain secure, they deteriorate over time. On the one hand increasing computing power leads to more powerful attacks on their underlying mathematical problems. On the other hand quantum computing threatens to break many widely used cryptographic primitives. The main goal of cryptographic agility is to enable an easy transition to alternative cryptographic schemes. Considering the long lifetime of products within industrial automation, we argue that vendors should strive for cryptographic agility in their products. In this work we motivate cryptographic agility by discussing the threat of quantum computers to modern cryptography. Additionally, we introduce the reader to the concept of post-quantum cryptography. Ultimately, we demonstrate that cryptographic agility requires three elements: 1) cryptographic application programming interfaces, 2) secure update mechanisms and 3) documentation of cryptographic primitives. By providing practical concepts we show how to meet these requirements in software-based systems.