This article presents a novel network protocol that incorporates a quantum photonic channel for symmetric key distribution, a Dilithium signature to replace factor-based public key cryptography for enhanced authentication, security, and privacy. The protocol uses strong hash functions to hash original messages and verify heightened data integrity at the destination. This Quantum Good Authentication Protocol (QGP) provides high-level security provided by the theory of quantum mechanics. QGP also has the advantage of quantum-resistant data protection that prevents current digital computer and future quantum computer attacks. QGP transforms the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) by adding a quantum layer at the bottom of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (layer 0) and modifying the top layer (layer 7) with Dilithium signatures, thus improving the security of the original OSI model. In addition, QGP incorporates strong encryption, hardware-based quantum channels, post-quantum signatures, and secure hash algorithms over a platform of decryptors, switches, routers, and network controllers to form a testbed of the next-generation, secure quantum internet. The experiments presented here show that QGP provides secure authentication and improved security and privacy and can be adopted as a new protocol for the next-generation quantum Internet.
This article presents a novel network protocol that incorporates a quantum photonic channel for symmetric key distribution, a Dilithium signature to replace factor-based public key cryptography for enhanced authentication, security, and privacy. The protocol uses strong hash functions to hash original messages and verify heightened data integrity at the destination. This Quantum Good Authentication Protocol (QGP) provides high-level security provided by the theory of quantum mechanics. QGP also has the advantage of quantum-resistant data protection that prevents current digital computer and future quantum computer attacks. QGP transforms the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) by adding a quantum layer at the bottom of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (layer 0) and modifying the top layer (layer 7) with Dilithium signatures, thus improving the security of the original OSI model. In addition, QGP incorporates strong encryption, hardware-based quantum channels, post-quantum signatures, and secure hash algorithms over a platform of decryptors, switches, routers, and network controllers to form a testbed of the next-generation, secure quantum internet. The experiments presented here show that QGP provides secure authentication and improved security and privacy and can be adopted as a new protocol for the next-generation quantum Internet.
Quantum Cryptography or Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) solves the key distribution problem by allowing the exchange of a cryptographic key between two remote parties with absolute security, guaranteed by the laws of quantum physics.Extensive studies have been undertaken on QKD since it was noted that quantum computers could break public key cryptosystems based on number theory.Actually, the progress of research in this field allows the implementation of QKD outside of laboratories.Efforts are made to exploit this technology in the existing communication networks and to improve the performance and reliability of the implemented technologies.Some research is in progress for the integration of QKD with the protocols in different layers of OSI model.The examples of such research effort are the integration of QKD in point-to-point protocol (PPP) OSI layer 2 and the integration of QKD with IPSEC at OSI layer-3.All these works are moving towards the utilization of QKD technology for enhancing the security of modern computing applications on the internet.In this paper, we present a novel extension of the TLS protocol based on QKD.We introduce a scheme for integrating Quantum Cryptography in this protocol.Our approach improves the security of the process of authentication and data encryption.Also, we describe an example to illustrate the feasibility of our scheme's implementation.
Reliable and efficient functioning of a quantum network depends on identifying and mitigating security risks originating from within and outside the network. We aim to construct a comprehensive framework for developing and assessing secure quantum networks. We articulate issues for making quantum networks secure in general, summarise the state of the art and identify priority directions for further investigation. Our analysis builds on the secure communication protocols developed for classical layered network architectures such as the open-systems interconnection (OSI) model and the transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) model. Our work will lead to the development of a hardware-independent framework for securing general quantum networks that allows developers to identify mandatory security mechanisms and incorporate additional security requirements of the clients during design of the networks.
The potential of the swift development of quantum computing is an extreme danger to the traditional cryptographic programs, and they are the foundation of the modern communication infrastructure. RSA and ECC are classical public-key algorithms that can be successfully quantum-attacked, in particular, Shor's algorithm can easily factor large integers and calculate discrete logarithms (Bernstein et al., 2017). The Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) has become the key to secure the next-generation communication networks against these threats, which relies on lattice problem-based algorithms, hash-based based algorithms, multivariate polynomials-based algorithms, and code-based cryptography. The paper examines the concepts, design, and implementation issues of PQC within current network infrastructure focusing on the secure transmission of data, authentication, and key management in the upcoming 5G and 6G networks. The approach will include the survey of existing algorithms of PQC, model the integration of protocol in the communication systems and test computational efficiency, security strength, and scalability. It has been found that PQC is suitable to protect network communications against quantum attackers, and achieves reasonable performance, though trade-offs can be seen in terms of computation overhead, key size, and latency. The research offers understanding to the researcher, network engineers and policy makers in order to adopt quantum resistant cryptography protocols to secure the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of information in the future communication networks.
Quantum internet is an innovative approach to secure communication. Quantum internet is the next revolution in technology that enables the devices to perform operations that are beyond the classical internet. Quantum internet with quantum cryptography is one of the best solutions for secure data communication. Quantum internet uses the fundamental laws of quantum physics, which make it secure against sophisticated network attacks. In this research, the authors described quantum cryptography, which enhances the secure transmission over quantum internet using cryptographic protocols. These protocols use random bits transformations, which prevent attackers to make out the patterns of random bits transformations. Also, they introduced the conceptual OSI model for quantum internet, which makes it easy to understand the working of the quantum internet at different layers. Quantum internet can be implemented in intelligence network, satellite communication, critical infrastructure, etc. This can mark a significant change in secure communication.
Biometric authentication has become integral to digital identity systems, particularly in smart cities where it enables secure access to services across governance, transportation, and public infrastructure. Centralised architectures, though widely used, pose privacy and scalability challenges due to the aggregation of sensitive biometric data. Decentralised identity frameworks offer better data sovereignty and eliminate single points of failure but introduce new security concerns, particularly around mutual trust among distributed devices. In such environments, biometric sensors and verification agents must authenticate one another before sharing sensitive biometric data. Existing authentication schemes rely on classical public key infrastructure, which is increasingly susceptible to quantum attacks. This work addresses this gap by proposing a quantum-secure communication protocol for decentralised biometric systems, built upon an enhanced Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) system. The protocol incorporates quantum-resilient authentication at both the classical and quantum layers of QKD: post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is used to secure the classical channel, while authentication qubits verify the integrity of the quantum channel. Once trust is established, QKD generates symmetric keys for encrypting biometric data in transit. Qiskit-based simulations show a key generation rate of 15 bits/sec and 89% efficiency. This layered, quantum-resilient approach offers scalable, robust authentication for next-generation smart city infrastructures.
The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology into transportation systems holds immense potential to transform the way we move people and goods, offering benefits such as increased efficiency, reduced emissions, improved safety, and enhanced user experience. With the ubiquitous and high-speed connectivity, sixth-generation (6G) technology is envisaged to make unprecedented revolutions in several fields and applications including IoT applications and transportation systems. The convergence of 6G networks with these applications will provide seamless connectivity and help to integrate functionalities such as sensing, communication, and computing, resulting in superior service quality. However, the IoT network is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. With the recent developments in quantum computers and quantum algorithms, it is important to make them secure from quantum attacks as well. In this paper, we propose a quantum-safe authentication protocol using a Post-Quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanism (PQKEM) for IoT applications in transportation systems. The protocol is built using CRYSTALS-Kyber, a lattice-based PQKEM, selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in round 3 of the post-quantum standardization process. We provide a formal security proof of the proposed authentication protocol using the Real-Or-Random (RoR) model. We also present a performance analysis of the proposed authentication protocol.