Maksim is an affiliate professor and the Head of cyber security direction at Caucasus University. He is also Head of the information technologies bachelor and of the IT management master programs. Since 2020, Maksim Iavich is an expert-evaluator at National Center for Education Quality Development of Georgia. Prof. Iavich is a Director of the Cyber Security Center, CST (CU), which is the official representative of Bit Sentinel in the region. He leads bachelor and master IT programs at this university. He is CEO & President of Scientific Cyber Security Association (SCSA). Maksim is cybersecurity consultant in Georgian and international organizations. He uses to be the invited speaker at international cyber security conferences and is the organizer of many scientific cyber security events. He was the key speaker at Defcamp in 2018-2021. He has many scientific awards in the cyber security field. Maksim is the author of many scientific papers. The topics of the papers are cyber security, cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, quantum cryptography, mathematical models, and simulations. 

The model of post-quantum signature using Verkle Tree

In October 2019, Google claimed quantum supremacy, which caused a lot of controversy, but if it is considered the fact that tech giants are racing to create the first quantum computers, and they have reasonable success, the world can get to verge of a new era.

Google believes its current chip design could increase the memory capacity from 100 to 1000 qubits. IBM steps on his heels, as claims to build a quantum processor with more than 1,000 qubits and somewhere between 10 and 50 logical qubits by the end of 2023. To date, the company’s quantum processors top out at 65 qubits. It plans to offer a 127-qubit processor in 2021 and a 433-qubit in 2022. 

In 2021, the scientists from China have announced that they have created the new quantum computer, much stronger than the previous ones. Therefore, Chinese scientists took the lead in the Quantum Computing Race. The scientists from China claim that their 66-qubit quantum CPU “Zuchongzhi 2” reportedly completed the same task 1 million times faster than Google’s one. This CPU was developed by a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, in conjunction with the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology.

Quantum computers will be capable of cracking the cryptographic codes used today to secure communications and financial transactions. Therefore, presently used digital signature systems are irresistible to attacks implemented on quantum computers and the world should have adopted quantum-resistant cryptography. The security of currently used digital signature systems is based on the problem of calculating discrete logarithms and the large numbers factoring. Some cryptosystems for example RSA – with four thousand bit keys – are useful to stand against attacks implemented on classical computer, but are absolutely useless against attacks implemented by quantum computers.

At DefCamp I will offer the model of the new post-quantum digital signature scheme using Verkle tree. This signature is much more efficient than the existing hash based Merkle digital signature.