Slim Bettaieb

Cryptographer · Technology Innovation Institute

I am a cryptographer working on the design and analysis of post-quantum cryptographic schemes, as well as on secure and efficient cryptographic implementations.

I have contributed to NIST's post-quantum cryptography standardisation process and am one of the co-authors of HQC-KEM, a code-based key encapsulation mechanism selected by NIST for standardisation in March 2025; see the Standards section. I am currently a cryptographer at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi. Before joining TII, I worked as an applied cryptographer at Worldline's R&D labs.

My research interests lie in applied post-quantum cryptography and its impact on real-world applications, secure implementation of cryptographic primitives, and privacy-preserving primitives.

Applied Post-Quantum Cryptography Real-World Applications Secure Implementation Privacy-Preserving Primitives

NIST PQC Standardisation

Standards

🏛 NIST Standard Co-Author Implementation Maintainer

HQC-KEM

Hamming Quasi-Cyclic — Key Encapsulation Mechanism

HQC (Hamming Quasi-Cyclic) is a code-based Key Encapsulation Mechanism selected by NIST for post-quantum cryptography standardisation. It is built on the hardness of decoding quasi-cyclic codes in the Hamming metric. I am one of the co-authors of HQC and one of the maintainers of its official implementations.

Slim Bettaieb with the NIST plaque recognising HQC selection for post-quantum standardisation

"NIST extends its appreciation to the HQC team for outstanding contributions to the NIST PQC standardization process through the design of HQC‑KEM" - March 2025

The NIST plaque awarded to the HQC team - March 2025

Official Website Specification

Beyond HQC, I have also been involved as a co-author in several other submissions to the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardisation process, spanning both the main KEM competition and the ongoing additional signatures on-ramp.

NIST PQC Additional Signatures On-Ramp · Ongoing

SDitH

Digital Signature Scheme

3rd Round · Ongoing

Syndrome-Decoding-in-the-Head (SDitH): a VOLE-in-the-Head / Threshold-Computation-in-the-Head signature scheme based on the syndrome decoding problem. It was recently selected for the third round of NIST's additional post-quantum digital signatures standardization process.

PERK

Digital Signature Scheme

2nd Round Candidate

PERK is a digital signature scheme based on the hardness of solving the PERmuted Kernel problem. Submitted to the NIST on-ramp; not advanced to the third round.

NIST PQC KEM Competition

BIKE

Key Encapsulation Mechanism

4th Round Candidate

Bit Flipping Key Encapsulation: a code-based KEM based on quasi-cyclic moderate density parity check (QC-MDPC) codes. Reached the fourth round of the NIST PQC competition.

RQC

Key Encapsulation Mechanism

2nd Round Candidate

Rank Quasi-Cyclic: a KEM based on the hardness of decoding quasi-cyclic codes in the rank metric. Submitted to the NIST PQC competition and reached the second round.