Rank based Cryptography: a credible post-quantum alternative to classical crypto

Abstract : In this paper we present rank-based cryptogra­ phy and discuss its interest relatively to other post-quantum families of cryptosystems like for in­stance code (Hamming)-based cryptography or lattice (Euclidean)-based cryptography. We also survey re­cent interesting results for this metric and show that rank based cryptography has many advantages and is a credible alternative to classical cryptography, when not so many alternatives are possible. In particular we present recent cryptosystems like the encryption LRPC scheme or the RankSign signature algorithm which are both fast algorithm with small size of key of only a few hundred bits. We also consider the secu­rity of the general cryptographic problem, the Rank Decoding problem and highlights upcoming results on its security both theoretical and practical.