McEliece/Niederreiter PKC: Sensitivity to Fault Injection

Abstract

The McEliece and Niederreiter public key cryptosystems (PKC) are presumed secure in a post quantum world because there is no efficient quantum algorithm that solves the hard problems upon which these cryptosystems are built. The present article indicates, however, a different type of vulnerability for such cryptosystems, namely fault injection. We present the injection fault in the McEliece scheme using Goppa codes and in two variants using quasi-cyclic alternant and quasi-dyadic codes, and describe the main difference of those constructions in this context.