Key Summary
- A Seoul National University team won the grand prize at South Korea’s 2026 National Crypto Competition, hosted by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
- The team proposed a distributed public-key cryptography method designed to remain secure in environments involving quantum computers.
- According to the NIS, 180 teams entered the competition, and 55 teams were selected for awards after review and interviews.
- The event was held on November 11 at the EL Tower in Yangjae, Seoul, together with the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology and the Quantum-Resistant Cryptography Research Group.
- Grand prize and top-prize winners received 10 million won and 3 million won respectively.
Main Story
A team from Seoul National University received the highest honor at the 2026 National Crypto Competition, an event organized by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. The competition focused on cryptographic technologies that can address the security challenges expected in a quantum-computing environment.
The NIS said the awards ceremony took place on November 11 at the EL Tower in Yangjae, Seoul, in cooperation with the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology and the Quantum-Resistant Cryptography Research Group. This year’s contest drew 180 teams in total, with submissions spread across cryptography theory, cryptographic applications, and quantum-resistant cryptography.
Judges, described by the NIS as a panel of 47 academic experts, reviewed the entries in writing and then conducted in-depth interviews before choosing 55 teams for awards. The Seoul National University team, represented by Hwang Yi-sol, won the grand prize for proposing a distributed public-key cryptography technique. Under that approach, multiple participants share control of the encryption key, and decryption requires cooperation from at least a threshold number of participants.
The NIS said the method was highly rated because it offers strong security even in the presence of quantum computers while also improving communication efficiency among participants.
Five teams received top prizes. These included two teams from Kookmin University in the cryptography theory category, two teams from Korea University in cryptographic applications, and one team from Kookmin University in the quantum-resistant cryptography category. The grand prize came with 10 million won, while the top prize was worth 3 million won.
Kim Chang-seop, the NIS’s third deputy director, said the importance of cryptography is increasing as quantum-computing technology advances and artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated. He added that the agency will continue supporting efforts to strengthen next-generation cryptographic capabilities against future security threats.
Background
The supplied text does not provide additional background beyond the details of the competition, the award ceremony, and the winning entry.
Items Requiring Further Verification
- The article attributes assessments of the winning technology’s security and efficiency to the judging process, but the underlying technical validation is not independently detailed in the text.
- The statement that the method is secure against quantum-computing threats is presented as the basis for the award rather than as a separately verified technical conclusion.
- The NIS’s remarks about the growing importance of cryptography due to quantum computing and AI are forward-looking and institutional in nature, and are not independently corroborated in the article.