Page 63 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2023

2. Public Disclosure: Verify if the vendor's underlying entropy methodology has been openly disclosed
for peer review by engineering professionals.

3. Independent Tests: Ensure independent tests, like those from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), were conducted on the RNGs raw output to check for patterns implying the numbers
were not randomly generated.

Remember, a collapse in fundamental cryptography via an attack on random numbers crumbles all the
security infrastructure built on top of it. SolarWinds was a warning, perhaps even an omen of worse to
come. Thus, it is crucial that vendors are held to high standards of transparency to prevent cascading
effects.

New research from my team and I at Qrypt and teams at Advanced Quantum Architecture (AQUA)
Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Ruder Boskovic, and Global Foundries
discovered a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD)-based QRNG design, which utilizes the quantum
random flip-flop (QRFF) method. This type of integrated circuit on a SPAD array at the 55nm scale was
science fiction a few years ago. The ability to detect a single particle of light, a photon, billions of times a
second across thousands of pixels on a 2mm chip would have stunned most technologists of the previous
generation. Leveraging quantum events like this at these speeds is essential to making security
guarantees further up the encryption stack in any network.

Research like this contributes to our understanding of quantum randomness and its applications in digital
security. As more QRNGs come to market, it is crucial that we, as consumers and stakeholders in digital
security, demand transparency from vendors and stay informed about the latest developments in the
rapidly evolving field of quantum.

About the Author

Denis Mandich, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Qrypt.

As Co-Founder & CTO of Qrypt, Denis drives the technology roadmap and secures
the global expertise to achieve the company vision to protect against quantum
computing threats. Previously, he served 20 years in the US Intelligence
Community, working on singular, innovative technology essential to National
Security. Denis is a board member of Quside, advisor to the Quantum Startup
Foundry, and NSF-funded Mid-Atlantic Region Quantum Internet. He speaks
native-level Croatian and Russian.
Qrypt can be reached online at our company website https://www.qrypt.com/

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2023 Edition 63
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