As the quantum computing era approaches, securing classical cryptographic protocols becomes imperative. Public key cryptography is widely used for signature and key exchange but it’s the type of cryptography more threatened by quantum computing. Its application typically requires support via a public-key certificate, which is a signed data structure and must therefore face twice the quantum challenge: for the certified keys and for the signature itself. We present the latest developments in selecting robust Post-Quantum algorithms and investigate their applicability in the Public Key Infrastructure context. Our contribution entails defining requirements for a secure transition to a quantum-resistant Public Key Infrastructure, with a focus on adaptations for the X.509 certificate format. Additionally, we explore transitioning Certificate Revocation List and Online Certificate Status Protocol to support quantum-resistant algorithms. Through comparative analysis, we elucidate the complex transition to a quantum-resistant PKI.
As the quantum computing era approaches, securing classical cryptographic protocols becomes imperative. Public key cryptography is widely used for signature and key exchange but it’s the type of cryptography more threatened by quantum computing. Its application typically requires support via a public-key certificate, which is a signed data structure and must therefore face twice the quantum challenge: for the certified keys and for the signature itself. We present the latest developments in selecting robust Post-Quantum algorithms and investigate their applicability in the Public Key Infrastructure context. Our contribution entails defining requirements for a secure transition to a quantum-resistant Public Key Infrastructure, with a focus on adaptations for the X.509 certificate format. Additionally, we explore transitioning Certificate Revocation List and Online Certificate Status Protocol to support quantum-resistant algorithms. Through comparative analysis, we elucidate the complex transition to a quantum-resistant PKI.
The impending threat posed by quantum-capable adversaries necessitates a secure and practical transition of Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) to support post-quantum cryptography (PQC). This paper addresses the multifaceted challenges of integrating PQC into existing PKI ecosystems by examining novel cryptographic combiners and hybrid certificate designs that can provide quantum-resistant security. We assess the performance, compatibility, and security of these hybrid certificates across standard communication protocols such as TLS, considering variations in root and intermediate certification paths. In addition, we introduce key management procedures that cover signature generation, validation, and lifecycle considerations under both software and hardware constraints. Beyond X.509, alternative trust models and certificate mechanisms are also analyzed for specialized domains, including IoT, firmware signing, and smart cards.
Development of Quantum Computers are growing rapidly, the security of today’s cryptographic systems which are working with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is at serious risk. RSA and ECC algorithms are the backbone of secure communication and digital identity can be breakable by quantum algorithms such as Shor’s. Hence, a transition is required to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), which is designed to handle quantum attacks. This work provides a detailed review of how PQC can be integrated with the existing PKI, with a special focus on the auto-enrollment process. Auto-enrollment is an essential process but often overlooked mechanism, responsible for automatically issuing and renewing digital certificates. First, we explored how current PKI systems are exposed to the quantum threats and the readiness. The performance of the algorithms that are standardized by NIST, such as Kyber and Dilithium were discussed. We analyze the technical and operational challenges of transitioning to PQC by referencing both research studies and real-world implementations from major industry players such as Google and Microsoft. These include large key size, certificate size, compatibility issues, complex computations and need for crypto-agility. We also examine the hybrid approaches that combine classical and post-quantum methods as traditional strategies. The survey concludes by outlining best practices, deployment considerations, and open research challenges that must be addressed for a smooth, secure, and scalable shift to quantum-safe PKI. This work aims to guide researchers, engineers, and policymakers in building the next generation of cryptographic infrastructure that can stand the test-time even in a quantum world.
Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is, and should be, currently dominating the field of cybersecurity, with many works designing and evaluating the transition of communications security to quantum-safe solutions. As the security level and implementations of post-quantum algorithms become more mature, the research on their application to realistic conditions changes accordingly, especially their application to widely adopted network architectures and corresponding protocols such as the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). In this survey, we identified articles presenting ways of integrating PQC algorithms to PKI and classified related work according to the employed methods and benchmarking choices. The main results from many evaluations converge to similar conclusions on the performance of the most popular PC digital signature algorithms; however, modeling choices concerning architecture variants, hardware and measurement metrics vary. The diversity of the results and experimental setups makes comparison difficult and arrival at an objective conclusion regarding PKI requirements almost impossible. Ultimately, this review reveals a fragmented landscape of benchmarking practices for post-quantum PKI systems. The absence of standardized evaluation frameworks and common test environments limits the comparability and reproducibility of the findings. We aim to provide reference implementations, which are essential to guide the transition of PKI infrastructures toward robust, scalable, and quantum-resistant deployments.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) generates and distributes digital certificates to provide the root of trust for securing digital networking systems. To continue securing digital networking in the quantum era, PKI should transition to use quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms. The cryptography community is developing quantum-resistant primitives/algorithms, studying, and analyzing them for cryptanalysis and improvements. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected finalist algorithms for the post-quantum digital signature cipher standardization, which are Dilithium, Falcon, and Rainbow. We study and analyze the feasibility and the processing performance of these algorithms in memory/size and time/speed when used for PKI, including the key generation from the PKI end entities (e.g., a HTTPS/TLS server), the signing, and the certificate generation by the certificate authority within the PKI. The transition to post-quantum from the classical ciphers incur changes in the parameters in the PKI, for example, Rainbow I significantly increases the certificate size by 163 times when compared with RSA 3072. Nevertheless, we learn that the current X.509 supports the NIST post-quantum digital signature ciphers and that the ciphers can be modularly adapted for PKI. According to our empirical implementations-based study, the post-quantum ciphers can increase the certificate verification time cost compared to the current classical cipher and therefore the verification overheads require careful considerations when using the post-quantum-cipher-based certificates.
In the last few years the threat of quantum computers has become bigger and bigger. The fast computing of the quantum computers puts everything in danger that relies on classical cryptographic algorithms. The question of when a large-scale quantum computer will be built cannot be exactly answered yet. According to the Cloud Security Alliance at around 2030 the power of quantum computers will increase so that the risk for exposure of traditionally encrypted data will be very high. PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) relies on asymmetric cryptographic algorithms and is widely used in many fields. So it is important that it will be completely safe. The way to provide that is to change traditional cryptographic algorithms to post-quantum cryptography algorithms or hybrid solutions. To this, we review in this paper the basics of classical PKI and quantum cryptography methods and the threat of quantum computing for PKI. We present quantum-safe solutions already in use and recommend new, well-performing solutions for a quantum-resistant PKI by comparison.
As quantum computing advances, current cryptographic protocols are increasingly vulnerable to quantum attacks, particularly those based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) like RSA or Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). This paper presents a comprehensive review of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) as a solution to protect digital systems in the quantum era. We provide an in-depth analysis of various quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms, including lattice-based, code-based, hash-based, isogeny-based, and multivariate approaches. The review highlights the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) PQC standardization process, highlighting key algorithms, such as CRYSTALS–Kyber, CRYSTALS–Dilithium, Falcon, and SPHINCS+, and discusses the strengths, vulnerabilities, and implementation challenges of the leading algorithms. In addition, we explore transition strategies for organizations, emphasizing hybrid cryptography to ensure backward compatibility during migration. This study offers key insights into the future of cryptographic standards and the critical steps necessary to prepare for the transition from classical to quantum-resistant systems.