Patent ID: 8111826

Claim:
An apparatus for generating an elliptic curve cryptographic parameter comprising: a storage device for storing information; an output device for outputting information; a processing device for performing computation; a prime number generation unit for generating a prime number r by using the processing device, and for storing the prime number r generated, in the storage device; a group order suitability judgment unit for reading the prime number r generated by the prime number generation unit from the storage device, and for judging whether the prime number r is suitable as a group order of an additive group E(K) composed of points on an elliptic curve E over a finite field K=GF(q) in elliptic curve cryptographic processing, by using the processing device; and a group order candidate output unit, when the group order suitability judgment unit judges that the prime number r is suitable as the group order of the additive group E(K) composed of points on the elliptic curve E over the finite field K in elliptic curve cryptographic processing, for reading the prime number r generated by the prime number generation unit from the storage device, and for outputting the prime number r as a group order candidate by using the output device.