Secure Boot in Post-Quantum Era

Secure boot is a standard feature for ensuring the authentication and integrity of software. For this purpose, secure boot leverages the advantage of Public Key Cryptography (PKC). However, the fast-developing quantum computers have posed serious threats to the existing PKC. The cryptography community is already preparing to thwart the expected quantum attacks. Moreover, the standardization of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms by NIST have advanced to \(4^{th}\) round, after selecting and announcing the post-quantum encryption and signature schemes for standardization. Hence, considering the recent developments, it is high time to realize a smooth transition from conventional PKC to post-quantum PKC. In this paper, we have implemented the PQ algorithms recently selected by NIST for standardization– CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON and SPHINCS \(^{+}\) as candidate schemes in the secure boot process. Furthermore, we have also proposed an idea of double signing the boot stages, for enhanced security, with signing a classical signature by a post-quantum signature. We have also provided efficiency analysis for various combinations of these double signatures.