The Internet of Things (IoT) depicts a giant network where every “thing” can be interconnected through the communication network. The communication can be initiated between people-people, people-things, and things-things. Meanwhile, the fifth generation (5G) mobile communicating systems are the mainspring to power the IoT concept in the upcoming future. However, the heterogeneous environment in 5G networks as well as the high dependency on radio spectrum have raised deep concerns about the security assurance against network attacks such as eavesdropping. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end security mechanism to ensure the multi-hop relay communications in 5G based IoT networks to stay secured. We design a scenario to explain the insecure multi-hop relay communications which involves Base Station (BS), Subscriber Station (SS) and Relay Station (RS). Next, we utilize Quantum Cryptography between BS to RS and RS to RS as well as adopting Elliptic Curve Cryptography between BS to SS or RS to SS to mitigate the network against typical replay attacks. By using the concept of integrating both cryptographic methods, the secret key that yield from Quantum Cryptography will be used in Elliptic Curve Cryptography to secure the transmission of information across IoT networks. Thereupon, extensive discussion has been carried out and it shows that the suggested mechanism has potential to ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability and non-repudiation in the proposed scenario. In the final part of this paper, we conclude our study by a comparison analysis between the two proposed cryptographic solutions. The comparison analysis illustrates the performance of each proposed strategy in terms of the achievable level of secrecy in IoT networks.
The Internet of Things (IoT) depicts a giant network where every “thing” can be interconnected through the communication network. The communication can be initiated between people-people, people-things, and things-things. Meanwhile, the fifth generation (5G) mobile communicating systems are the mainspring to power the IoT concept in the upcoming future. However, the heterogeneous environment in 5G networks as well as the high dependency on radio spectrum have raised deep concerns about the security assurance against network attacks such as eavesdropping. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end security mechanism to ensure the multi-hop relay communications in 5G based IoT networks to stay secured. We design a scenario to explain the insecure multi-hop relay communications which involves Base Station (BS), Subscriber Station (SS) and Relay Station (RS). Next, we utilize Quantum Cryptography between BS to RS and RS to RS as well as adopting Elliptic Curve Cryptography between BS to SS or RS to SS to mitigate the network against typical replay attacks. By using the concept of integrating both cryptographic methods, the secret key that yield from Quantum Cryptography will be used in Elliptic Curve Cryptography to secure the transmission of information across IoT networks. Thereupon, extensive discussion has been carried out and it shows that the suggested mechanism has potential to ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability and non-repudiation in the proposed scenario. In the final part of this paper, we conclude our study by a comparison analysis between the two proposed cryptographic solutions. The comparison analysis illustrates the performance of each proposed strategy in terms of the achievable level of secrecy in IoT networks.
The Internet of Things (IoT) depicts a bright future, where any devices having sensorial and computing capabilities can interact with each other. Among all existing technologies, the techniques for the fifth generation (5G) systems are the main driving force for the actualization of IoT concept. However, due to the heterogeneous environment in 5G networks and the broadcast nature of radio propagation, the security assurance against eavesdropping is a vital yet challenging task. In this paper, we focus on the transmission design for secure relay communications in IoT networks, where the communication is exposed to eavesdroppers with unknown number and locations. The randomize-and-forward relay strategy specially designed for secure multi-hop communications is employed in our transmission protocol. First, we consider a single-antenna scenario, where all the devices in the network are equipped with the single antenna. We derive the expression for the secrecy outage probability of the two-hop transmission. Following this, a secrecy-rate-maximization problem subject to a secrecy-outage-probability constraint is formulated. The optimal power allocation and codeword rate design are obtained. Furthermore, we generalize the above analyses to a more generic scenario, where the relay and eavesdroppers are equipped with multiple antennas. Numerical results show that the proper use of relay transmission can enhance the secrecy throughput and extend the secure coverage range.
The proliferation of 5th generation (5G) technology has catalyzed significant advancements in various application of Internet of Things(IoT) such as Intelligent Transportation Systems, Smart Energy, Industrial IoT (IIoT), Digital Twins, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Smart Health. However, with the upcoming advent of quantum computing, conventional security methods are encountering new and significant challenges, requiring the revaluation of pre and post-quantum security measures. This study provides an in-depth analysis of security measures before and after the advent of quantum computing for intelligent IoT applications enabled by 5G-connected network. The survey thoroughly analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of conventional public key cryptography methods such as RSA, Diffie-Hellman, Secret Sharing, and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which are susceptible to quantum risks, and postquantum cryptographic methods such as lattice-based cryptography, code-based cryptography, and multivariate based techniques, which may provide protection against quantum attacks. Furthermore, we evaluate the suitability of these strategies in the context of 5G-enabled IoT deployments, taking into account the distinct requirements and obstacles presented by interconnected IoT devices. Although pre quantum public key cryptographic algorithms are still in use, but active research is going on to design and implement PQC algorithms to secure 5G IoT, while hybrid schemes have shown great promise being backward compatible with traditional cryptographic approaches at the same time bring quantum resistance. The survey offers significant insights into the latest pre and post-quantum security solutions for 5G-enabled IoT Applications. It helps in making educated decisions and implementing strong security measures in preparation for the quantum computing age.
The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced significant security challenges, especially in safeguarding sensitive data transmitted across vast networks. Traditional cryptographic methods, though widely used, face increasing vulnerabilities in light of advancements in quantum computing. This research explores the application of quantum cryptography, particularly Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), to secure data transmission in IoT networks. Quantum cryptography offers a revolutionary approach by utilizing the principles of quantum mechanics, ensuring communication channels are resistant to eavesdropping and quantum attacks. Despite its promise, integrating quantum cryptography into resource-constrained IoT environments presents several technical challenges. This paper examines current quantum cryptographic techniques, their feasibility for IoT applications, and proposed solutions for overcoming integration hurdles. Case studies of real-world implementations and experimental results are discussed to highlight the effectiveness of these methods. The findings suggest that quantum cryptography, while still in its infancy for IoT, has the potential to provide robust security solutions in future networks.
The rapid advancements in quantum computation pose significant threats to traditional cryptographic systems, such as those used in the Internet of Things (IoT). RSA and methods like Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) are particularly vulnerable to quantum algorithmic techniques, such as Shor’s and Grover’s algorithms. This paper focuses on the analysis of cryptographic models based on quantum technologies, with special emphasis on IoT security. It examines how both symmetric and public-key cryptography are affected by quantum comput-ing—highlighting vulnerabilities in symmetric schemes to Grover’s algorithm and in public-key systems like ECC to Shor’s algorithm. Significant focus is placed on the advancement of quantum-resistant ECC, with an in-depth evaluation of its effectiveness, security capabilities, and suitability for IoT applications. This work also compares various methods for implementing quantum-enhanced ECC, considering both software and hardware solutions. Furthermore, the paper explores emerging hybrid systems that integrate classical and quantum-resistant encryption to offer enhanced security in transitional scenarios. Lastly, it outlines potential research avenues for developing new techniques to protect future IoT networks from quantum-based attacks.
The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has connected billions of smart devices across healthcare, transportation, industrial automation, and smart home environments. While IoT has enhanced automation and data-driven decision-making, its widespread deployment has also increased the risk of cyberattacks. Conventional public-key cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) are vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks, particularly those based on Shor's algorithm. This paper proposes a Quantum-Resistant Cryptographic Framework (QRCF) for secure IoT communication using lattice-based cryptography integrated with lightweight authentication and efficient key management. The framework is designed to meet the computational limitations of IoT devices while ensuring long-term confidentiality and integrity. Performance evaluation demonstrates improvements in security resilience, authentication efficiency, and communication reliability compared with traditional cryptographic approaches. The proposed framework offers a scalable and future-ready solution for protecting IoT ecosystems in the post-quantum era.
The Fifth Generation (5G) networks deploy base station ultra-densification to boost data rates, capacities, reliability, energy efficiency as well as the reduction of communication latencies. To increase quality of service as well as quality of experience, a large number of Internet of Things (IoT) communications are relayed over 5G networks. For enhanced pervasive computing, most of the devices in 5G-IoT networks are continuously connected to the network, exchanging massive and sensitive data. Therefore, there is need to protect these networks from both privacy and security attacks. As a result, many security protocols have been presented in literature. Unfortunately, IoT devices are heterogeneous in nature with diverse communication and security architectures. These issues render privacy and security protection extremely challenging. Consequently, majority of the conventional protocols fail to fully address privacy and security issues in 5G-IoT networks. Particularly, user collusion, de-synchronization and side-channeling attacks are ignored in most of the security protocols. On the other hand, some of the developed protocols achieve salient security but at extremely high computation, storage and communication complexities. In this paper, an elliptic curve and biometric based security token derivation scheme is presented. Formal security analysis using Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic shows the negotiation of a session key between the communicating parties. On the other hand, informal security analysis shows that this scheme is secure under all the Canetti- Krawczyk (CK) threat model assumptions. In terms of efficiency, the comparative performance evaluation carried out shows that this protocol has the least communication and computation complexities among other related protocols.