November 10, 2025 -- Developing trusted implementations of quantum-safe cryptography involves some significant considerations, especially when it comes to building hardware and software solutions that are secure against real-world attacks. These challenges include the complexity of deploying post-quantum algorithms in a crypto-agile ecosystem, the constraints on internal memory and resources, and the need to provide effective countermeasures against physical attacks such as Side Channel Analysis (SCA) and Fault Injection Attack (FIA).

These considerations are at the heart of PQShield’s mission – building robust state-of-the-art implementations of post-quantum cryptography that help upgrade the world’s technology supply chain. It’s important that the resilience of their products is verified independently, and that’s why PQShield is pleased to announce the successful completion of a rigorous third-party security evaluation of their ML-DSA implementation.

Keysight’s evaluation

The independent assessment was conducted by Keysight Technologies Netherlands Riscure B.V., a world-renowned testing laboratory. It underscores PQShield’s commitment to delivering highly secure, resilient, quantum-safe solutions, and it marks an important stepping stone for PQShield’s products towards high-assurance security compliance requirements (Common Criteria and PSA Certified). This complements and validates their own extensive in-house research and testing efforts.

The in-depth evaluation focused on vulnerability analysis and specifically SCA on the target implementation. It required hundreds of hours of effort from expert evaluators. PQShield is pleased to say that the findings from Keysight validate the advanced security features embedded in PQShield’s products, while also highlighting Keysight’s exceptional capabilities in cutting-edge security testing.

Key highlights of PQShield’s quantum-safe security: PQPlatform

PQShield’s ML-DSA implementation, a sophisticated hardware-software co-design that’s used across the PQPlatform family of products, demonstrates strong resistance against advanced attack methodologies. The core polynomial multiplication operation, a crucial element of ML-DSA, is specifically engineered with a two-share masking scheme to counter side-channel threats.

Keysight’s efforts demonstrate the effectiveness of the PQShield’s countermeasures, even with the extensive testing of 2 million traces:

• No first-order power side-channel leakage related to key material in the hardened polynomial multiplication was detected
• No exploitation path for any higher-order leakage was detected

This evaluation showcases Keysight’s unparalleled expertise, conducted at its facilities in Delft (Netherlands) and San Francisco (CA, USA). It involved their proprietary methodologies for SCA as well as a rigorous evaluation approach. Keysight delivered a detailed and actionable assessment.

The report, complete with raw data comparisons and analysis, empowers PQShield to assess their security posture objectively, and provide trust in their solutions. What’s more, this collaboration exemplifies PQShield’s dedication to maintaining the highest security standards in the evolving landscape of quantum computing, backed by Keysight’s independent and expert validation.