A promising candidate in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization process, HAWK, has been withdrawn after a vulnerability was discovered through a new testing tool called Mythos. The algorithm had previously withstood years of scrutiny before this fatal weakness emerged.
HAWK was one of the algorithms competing to become a standard for protecting digital communications in the age of quantum computers. NIST initiated the PQC standardization process several years ago, recognizing the potential threat that future quantum computers pose to current encryption methods. The agency selected a handful of algorithms as finalists and alternates for further evaluation.
The vulnerability was identified using Mythos, described as a new attack platform. Ars Technica reports that HAWK “withstood years of testing that had yet to uncover a fatal weakness found through Mythos.” Details about the specific nature of the flaw were not provided in the source material, but its discovery proved sufficient to disqualify HAWK from further consideration.
The elimination of HAWK leaves fewer candidates remaining in the final rounds of NIST’s PQC competition. The agency is expected to announce the winning algorithms soon, establishing new cryptographic standards intended to secure data against both classical and quantum computing threats.
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