The rise of quantum computing threatens traditional cryptographic algorithms that secure Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS). Shor's algorithm poses a significant threat to RSA and ECC, while Grover's algorithm reduces the security of symmetric encryption schemes, such as AES. The objective of this paper is to underscore the urgency of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to mitigate these risks in TCPS by analyzing the vulnerabilities of traditional cryptographic schemes and the applicability of standardized PQC schemes in TCPS. We analyzed vulnerabilities in traditional cryptography against quantum attacks and reviewed the applicability of NIST-standardized PQC schemes, including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, and SPHINCS+, in TCPS. We conducted a case study to analyze the vulnerabilities of a TCPS application from the Architecture Reference for Cooperative and Intelligent Transportation (ARC-IT) service package, i.e., Electronic Toll Collection, leveraging the Microsoft Threat Modeling tool. This case study highlights the cryptographic vulnerabilities of a TCPS application and presents how PQC can effectively counter these threats. Additionally, we evaluated CRYSTALS-Kyber's performance across wired and wireless TCPS data communication scenarios. While CRYSTALS-Kyber proves effective in securing TCPS applications over high-bandwidth, low-latency Ethernet networks, our analysis highlights challenges in meeting the stringent latency requirements of safety-critical wireless applications within TCPS. Future research should focus on developing lightweight PQC solutions and hybrid schemes that integrate traditional and PQC algorithms, to enhance compatibility, scalability, and real-time performance, ensuring robust protection against emerging quantum threats in TCPS.
The rise of quantum computing threatens traditional cryptographic algorithms that secure Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS). Shor's algorithm poses a significant threat to RSA and ECC, while Grover's algorithm reduces the security of symmetric encryption schemes, such as AES. The objective of this paper is to underscore the urgency of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to mitigate these risks in TCPS by analyzing the vulnerabilities of traditional cryptographic schemes and the applicability of standardized PQC schemes in TCPS. We analyzed vulnerabilities in traditional cryptography against quantum attacks and reviewed the applicability of NIST-standardized PQC schemes, including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, and SPHINCS+, in TCPS. We conducted a case study to analyze the vulnerabilities of a TCPS application from the Architecture Reference for Cooperative and Intelligent Transportation (ARC-IT) service package, i.e., Electronic Toll Collection, leveraging the Microsoft Threat Modeling tool. This case study highlights the cryptographic vulnerabilities of a TCPS application and presents how PQC can effectively counter these threats. Additionally, we evaluated CRYSTALS-Kyber's performance across wired and wireless TCPS data communication scenarios. While CRYSTALS-Kyber proves effective in securing TCPS applications over high-bandwidth, low-latency Ethernet networks, our analysis highlights challenges in meeting the stringent latency requirements of safety-critical wireless applications within TCPS. Future research should focus on developing lightweight PQC solutions and hybrid schemes that integrate traditional and PQC algorithms, to enhance compatibility, scalability, and real-time performance, ensuring robust protection against emerging quantum threats in TCPS.
Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS) integrate physical elements, such as transportation infrastructure and vehicles, with cyber elements via advanced communication technologies, allowing them to interact seamlessly. This integration enhances the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of transportation systems. TCPS rely heavily on cryptographic security to protect sensitive information transmitted between vehicles, transportation infrastructure, and other entities within the transportation ecosystem, ensuring data integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity. Traditional cryptographic methods have been employed to secure TCPS communications, but the advent of quantum computing presents a significant threat to these existing security measures. Therefore, integrating Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) into TCPS is essential to maintain secure and resilient communications. While PQC offers a promising approach to developing cryptographic algorithms resistant to quantum attacks, artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance PQC by optimizing algorithm selection, resource allocation, and adapting to evolving threats in real-time. AI-driven PQC approaches can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of PQC implementations, ensuring robust security without compromising system performance. This chapter introduces TCPS communication protocols, discusses the vulnerabilities of corresponding communications to cyber-attacks, and explores the limitations of existing cryptographic methods in the quantum era. By examining how AI can strengthen PQC solutions, the chapter presents cyber-resilient communication strategies for TCPS.
Quantum computing is rapidly approaching a stage where classical cryptographic systems, particularly RSA, ECC, and Diffie–Hellman, will no longer provide adequate security for critical infrastructure. The emergence of Shor’s and Grover’s algorithms introduces unprecedented vulnerability to national cyber-defense ecosystems, underpinning power grids, transportation, military communications, and banking systems. This paper presents a unified post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) security framework integrating lattice-based primitives, hybrid key-exchange mechanisms, and secure orchestration for resource-constrained operational-technology environments. The proposed architecture leverages NIST-recommended schemes, including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, and SPHINCS+, to ensure long-term confidentiality, integrity, and interoperability across legacy and modern control environments. A defense-in-depth trust-fabric is introduced to protect critical data flows across edge controllers, automation PLCs, substations, cloud-SCADA gateways, and defense communication systems. Performance evaluation demonstrates a 39.4% reduction in key-exchange latency, 46% faster authentication cycles, and zero-downtime cryptographic transition capability. Our findings position this framework as a practical migration blueprint supporting national PQC readiness and cyber-resilience mandates.
The advent of quantum computing has precipitated an estimated attack resistant cryptography system necessitating quantum attacks. The classical asymmetric algorithms, i.e., RSA and ECC are susceptible to Shor algorithm and a transition should be made to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) anymore. The novelty of this work lies in providing a unified comparative framework that analyzes PQC families through security assumptions, concrete key/ciphertext sizes, and implementation complexity an aspect not addressed collectively in prior surveys. This survey gives a general picture of the status of the design process and general evaluation of PQC accounting its application within the paradigm of the diversified networks including the IoT and 5G/6G and in the cyber-physical environment. Furthermore, this review uniquely synthesizes practical hybrid‑deployment strategies, including protocol layering, coexistence models, and backward‑compatibility mechanisms, offering actionable guidance for real‑world migration. Additionally, the manuscript contributes a prioritized list of open problems across IoT, 5G/6G, blockchain, and cyber‑physical systems, highlighting domains facing the most urgent quantum‑resilience challenges. In this paper, the authors will evaluate the most popular PQC schemes, including schemes based on lattice, code, hash, and isogeny, depending on their performance, scalability, and interoperability (with reference to the recent research). It also examines the problems of integration as implemented with respect to the computational overhead, latency and adoption of hybrid with classical cryptography. This is expounded more to the standardization of PQC by NISTs and with a focus on such algorithms as CRYSTALS-Kyber and Dilithium. The findings suggest that, hybrid PQC protocols are able to control quantum resistance and actual performance in numerous infrastructures in computing systems.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses significant threats to classical cryptographic methods, such as Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which currently secure Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud communications. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), particularly lattice-based schemes, has emerged as a promising alternative. CRYSTALS-Kyber, standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as ML-KEM, has shown efficiency and practicality for constrained IoT devices. Most existing research has focused on PQC within the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. Consequently, a critical gap exists in understanding PQC’s performance in lightweight IoT protocols. These are Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), particularly under adverse network conditions. To address this gap, this paper provides a systematic review of the literature on the network resilience and performance of CRYSTALS-Kyber when integrated into these protocols operating over lossy and high-latency networks. Additional challenges include non-standardized integration, resource limitations, and side-channel vulnerabilities. This review provides a structured synthesis of current knowledge, highlights unresolved trade-offs between security and efficiency, and outlines future research directions, including protocol-level optimization, lightweight signature schemes, and resilience testing of PQC-secured IoT protocols under realistic conditions.
Quantum computing is rapidly advancing and threatens the cryptographic systems that secure digital communications. Classical cryptosystems, such as RSA and ECC, rely on mathematical problems that are difficult for classical computers but can be solved easily by quantum algorithms, such as Shor’s. This challenge underscores the pressing need for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to safeguard data against both classical and quantum threats. This study provides a comprehensive review of PQC Approaches in securing data against quantum threats by analyzing reviewed journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, and websites. Several researchers reviewed relevant literature published between 2019 and 2026 using the ACM Digital Library, Wiley Online Library, Taylor & Francis, Springer, ScienceDirect, MDPI, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, and Google Scholar. The review evaluates lattice-based, code-based, Hash-based, multivariate, and isogeny-based schemes across security strength, performance, interoperability, and deployment feasibility in heterogeneous environments, including cloud platforms and Internet of Things devices. The findings indicate that lattice-based schemes, particularly CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, currently offer the most balanced trade-off between efficiency and quantum resistance, while Hash-based schemes such as SPHINCS+ prioritize conservative security at notable performance cost. Code-based approaches, including McEliece, demonstrate strong long-term security but remain constrained by large key sizes. The review highlights implementation, energy, migration, and governance barriers that must be addressed before adoption. The review concludes by emphasizing that transitioning to PQC requires a collaborative effort from academia, industry, and government. Future research should focus on integrating lightweight PQC in IoT, 5G/6G, and cloud environments, as well as developing hybrid models that combine classical and quantum-safe systems. Addressing these issues is crucial for establishing secure data protection in the quantum era.
Quantum computing presents computational powers previously thought unattainable. This brings severe threats to classical cryptographic methods, especially RSA and ECC. This paper addresses these risks through a detailed investigation of quantum-resistant algorithms, focusing on lattice- based (CRYSTALS-Kyber), hash-based (SPHINCS+), and code-based (McEliece) systems. Research questions guiding this study include: How vulnerable are traditional algorithms under quantum attack, and which quantum-resistant alternatives offer viable performance and security trade-offs? Through simulations, we analyzed key metrics like encryption speeds, key sizes, and efficiency under quantum threats. Additionally, we demonstrated vulnerabilities in RSA-2048 and ECC-256 under Shor’s algorithm, emphasizing the necessity for quantum-resistant cryptography. Our results highlighted CRYSTALS-Kyber as a balanced candidate, aligning with the NIST PQC Standardization, while Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is reviewed for high-sensitivity contexts. Given the forecasted advancements in quantum hardware, we propose a transitional approach using hybrid cryptographic systems to ensure immediate security and ease the shift to quantum-safe protocols. This study also explores industry applications, particularly in finance, healthcare, and IoT, recommending a phased adoption strategy utilizing hybrid cryptographic systems for a secure, gradual transition.