Post Quantum Cryptography: Comparison between RSA and McEliece

Abstract

Cryptography is one of the techniques used to secure the process of communication in the presence of an adversarial party. Public key cryptosystem allows the process of encryption and decryption to use two different keys. The current de-facto algorithm for public key cryptosystem is the RSA. However, this cryptosystem is now considered insecure in the presence of quantum computing. The insecurity of this cryptosystem comes from an algorithm that can efficiently solve the Integer Factorization Problem, which has been the strength of RSA cryptosystem. Shor's algorithm can factor composite integers into its prime factors using a quantum computer in polynomial time. This research will give an insight on an alternative public key cryptosystem that is quantum resistant. The result of this research shows that while the RSA has better average time than the McEliece cryptosystem, McEliece cryptosystem has better cryptographic strength when compared to RSA.