• Feb. 2024.  SMAUG-T (v3.0) and HAETAE (v2.1) are submitted to KpqC competition, round 2. 

• Dec. 2023. Team SMAUG and Team TiGER have merged to Team SMAUG-T.

• Dec. 2023. SMAUG and HAETAE are advanced to KpqC round 2. 🥳

• Nov. 2023. HAETAE version update (v2.0).

• Oct. 2023.  SMAUG version update (v2.0). 

• Aug. 2023.  SMAUG paper is accepted to SAC 2023. 

• July 2023.  HAETAE is in NIST PQC standardization process (Additional Digital Signatures Round 1). 

• May 2023.  Website renewal and HAETAE & SMAUG version update (v1.0). 

• Jan. 2023.  SMAUG and HAETAE website is online. 

• Nov. 2022.  SMAUG (v0.9) and HAETAE (v0.9) are submitted to KpqC competition, round 1. 

In 2021, the National Security Research Institute (NSR) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) established the Korean Post-Quantum Cryptography (KpqC) research group. To strengthen national post-quantum security against the rise of quantum computing, the KpqC competition for the Korean standard PQC scheme has begun. 

Since November 2022, the first round has been underway with 7 Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) candidates and 9 Digital Signature candidates. In December 2023, 4 KEM algorithms and 4 Digital Signature algorithms have been advanced to the second round. 

In 2022, NIST has chosen three digital signature schemes to standardize: Dilithium, Falcon, and Sphincs+. NIST also announced that the PQC standardization process is continuing with a fourth round; however, there are no digital signature candidates under consideration to continue the fourth standardization process. 

To continue the standardization, NIST posted a call for additional digital signature proposals, and in July 2023, Round 1 Additional Signatures were announced.