An Overview of Hash Based Signatures

Vikas Srivastava; Anubhab Baksi; Sumit Kumar Debnath

Paper 2023/411

An Overview of Hash Based Signatures

Vikas Srivastava, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, India

Anubhab Baksi

, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Sumit Kumar Debnath, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, India

Abstract

Digital signatures are one of the most basic cryptographic building blocks which are utilized to provide attractive security features like authenticity, unforgeability, and undeniability. The security of existing state of the art digital signatures is based on hardness of number theoretic hardness assumptions like discrete logarithm and integer factorization. However, these hard problems are insecure and face a threat in the quantum world. In particular, quantum algorithms like Shor’s algorithm can be used to solve the above mentioned hardness problem in polynomial time. As an alternative, a new direction of research called post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is supposed to provide a new generation of quantum-resistant digital signatures. Hash based signature is one such candidate to provide post quantum secure digital signatures. Hash based signature schemes are a type of digital signature scheme that use hash functions as their central building block. They are efficient, flexible, and can be used in a variety of applications. In this document, we provide an overview of the hash based signatures. Our presentation of the topic covers a wide range of aspects that are not only comprehensible for readers without expertise in the subject matter, but also serve as a valuable resource for experts seeking reference material.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Publication info: Preprint.
Keywords: Hash Based Cryptography Digital Signature Post-quantum Cryptography
Contact author(s): 2020rsma011 @ nitjsr ac in
anubhab baksi @ ntu edu sg
sdebnath math @ nitjsr ac in
History: 2023-04-30: revised; 2023-03-22: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2023/411
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/411,
      author = {Vikas Srivastava and Anubhab Baksi and Sumit Kumar Debnath},
      title = {An Overview of Hash Based Signatures},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2023/411},
      year = {2023},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/411}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/411}
}