The Protocol Randomness and Information Security Measures for Space (PRISMS) project aims to address the problem that any system providing security services experiences – the overall security is equal to the most insecure system element. The PRISMS project is funded by Innovate UK.
In order to address the above problem, Craft Prospect has put together a consortium of organisations with strategic experts, to cover the following key sectors: Space, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), and cybersecurity and lay the groundwork for a commercial space-based quantum cryptographic service.
The final output would be a test bench of subsystems critical to the processing chain for Quantum Key Distribution, with threat injection points, meaning the security of the system could be assessed at a number of different stages of processing.
The PRISMS project will create a nanosatellite capable Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG) subsystem, drawing on developments in the ground-based Quantum Key Distribution domain to produce an engineering model capable of being developed into a cheap off the shelf nanosatellite subsystem. It will also provide customer confidence in a nanosatellite hosted Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) service by performing robust test regimes in line with accepted regulations and standards, and further establish Craft Prospect’s expertise in this domain.
Truly random random number generators are the holy grail of digital cryptography. Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG) offers a novel approach to generating random numbers because Quantum Mechanics indicates that the outcome of quantum events is unpredictable, thus harnessing quantum phenomena to generate random numbers ensures the numbers generated really are random, compared to traditional random number generators which generate what are called pseudo-random numbers.