In order to increase the security of edge computing, all data transmitted to and from edge devices, as well as all data stored on edge devices, must be encrypted. Especially when the transmitted or stored data contains sensitive personal information, long-term protection over periods of ten or more years may be required, which can only be achieved with post-quantum cryptography. This article first gives a brief overview of post-quantum public-key cryptosystems based on hard mathematical problems related to hash functions, error-correcting codes, multivariate quadratic systems, and lattices. Then the suitability of lattice-based cryptosystems for resource-constrained devices is discussed and efficient implementations for 8 and 32-bit microcontrollers are outlined.
In order to increase the security of edge computing, all data transmitted to and from edge devices, as well as all data stored on edge devices, must be encrypted. Especially when the transmitted or stored data contains sensitive personal information, long-term protection over periods of ten or more years may be required, which can only be achieved with post-quantum cryptography. This article first gives a brief overview of post-quantum public-key cryptosystems based on hard mathematical problems related to hash functions, error-correcting codes, multivariate quadratic systems, and lattices. Then the suitability of lattice-based cryptosystems for resource-constrained devices is discussed and efficient implementations for 8 and 32-bit microcontrollers are outlined.
The latest quantum computers have the ability to solve incredibly complex classical cryptography equations particularly to decode the secret encrypted keys and making the network vulnerable to hacking. They can solve complex mathematical problems almost instantaneously compared to the billions of years of computation needed by traditional computing machines. Researchers advocate the development of novel strategies to include data encryption in the post-quantum era. Lattices have been widely used in cryptography, somewhat peculiarly, and these algorithms have been used in both; (a) cryptoanalysis by using lattice approximation to break cryptosystems; and (b) cryptography by using computationally hard lattice problems (non-deterministic polynomial time hardness) to construct stable cryptographic functions. Most of the dominant features of lattice-based cryptography (LBC), which holds it ahead in the post-quantum league, include resistance to quantum attack vectors, high concurrent performance, parallelism, security under worst-case intractability assumptions, and solutions to long-standing open problems in cryptography. While these methods offer possible security for classical cryptosytems in theory and experimentation, their implementation in energy-restricted Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices requires careful study of regular lattice-based implantation and its simplification in lightweight lattice-based cryptography (LW-LBC). This streamlined post-quantum algorithm is ideal for levelled IoT device security. The key aim of this survey was to provide the scientific community with comprehensive information on elementary mathematical facts, as well as to address real-time implementation, hardware architecture, open problems, attack vectors, and the significance for the IoT networks.
The imminent threat posed by the development of cryptographically relevant quantum computers necessitates a paradigm shift in public-key cryptography. Traditional cryptosystems like RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which underpin global digital security, are vulnerable to quantum algorithms such as Shor's algorithm. This vulnerability mandates a proactive migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to secure long-term sensitive data. Among the various candidates for post-quantum security, lattice-based cryptography has emerged as a particularly promising and robust solution. This paper explores the fundamental principles of lattice-based cryptography, detailing its security foundations rooted in the presumed hardness of lattice problems like the Short Integer Solution (SIS) and Learning With Errors (LWE) problems. We review the significant progress in the field, including its selection as a primary candidate in the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography standardization process. We discuss its advantages in terms of provable security, versatility, and potential for efficient implementation across diverse platforms, from cloud infrastructure to the Internet of Things (IoT). We also address the practical implications and challenges of its deployment, asserting its indispensable role in fortifying public-key security against future quantum attacks, thereby establishing it as a post-quantum imperative.
Although quantum computing is still in its nascent age, its evolution threatens the most popular public-key encryption systems. Such systems are essential for today's Internet security due to their ability for solving the key distribution problem and for providing high security in insecure communications channels that allow for accessing websites or for exchanging e-mails, financial transactions, digitally signed documents, military communications or medical data. Cryptosystems like Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA), elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) or Diffie-Hellman have spread worldwide and are part of diverse key Internet standards like Transport Layer Security (TLS), which are used both by traditional computers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It is especially difficult to provide high security to IoT devices, mainly because many of them rely on batteries and are resource constrained in terms of computational power and memory, which implies that specific energy-efficient and lightweight algorithms need to be designed and implemented for them. These restrictions become relevant challenges when implementing cryptosystems that involve intensive mathematical operations and demand substantial computational resources, which are often required in applications where data privacy has to be preserved for the long term, like IoT applications for defense, mission-critical scenarios or smart healthcare. Quantum computing threatens such a long-term IoT device security and researchers are currently developing solutions to mitigate such a threat. This article provides a survey on what can be called post-quantum IoT systems (IoT systems protected from the currently known quantum computing attacks): the main post-quantum cryptosystems and initiatives are reviewed, the most relevant IoT architectures and challenges are analyzed, and the expected future trends are indicated. Thus, this article is aimed at providing a wide view of post-quantum IoT security and give useful guidelines to the future post-quantum IoT developers.
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has heightened concerns regarding their security and privacy. Conventional cryptographic methods underpinning IoT security are increasingly threatened by the emergence of quantum computing, which promises to break widely used encryption algorithms such as RSA and ECC. This paper explores post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms tailored to the resource-constrained nature of IoT environments. It analyzes lattice-based, hash-based, code-based, and multivariate polynomial cryptographic schemes as promising candidates for securing IoT communications against quantum attacks. The paper further discusses implementation challenges, performance considerations, and potential pathways for integrating PQC within existing IoT architectures. Empirical data on computational efficiency and security strength are also presented to guide future deployment.
Abstract As the number and characteristics of smart devices change, the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) emerges. The IoT provides the connected devices with a variety of resources that enable effective communication. At this point, several security issues arise to get the sensitive information behind every communication in the IoT. To provide users with security and privacy, cryptographic schemes are adopted, the most popular being public key cryptographic systems (PKC). However, with the advent of quantum computing, the level of security that can be provided by the PKC schemes is a big question. Another important issue is that the IoT environment is resource‐constrained, which necessitates the implementation of lightweight cryptographic algorithms for better security. In response to these issues, the post‐quantum cryptographic (PQC) schemes are one of the significant developments contributing to IoT security in the post‐quantum world. This article examines the key security issues in the IoT environment and examines the effective solutions found in the literature. The problems in IoT in the quantum era are discussed and appropriate solutions by PKC schemes under limited resources in IoT are focused. As the lattice‐based cryptosystems are more effective, the importance of these schemes in the resource‐constrained IoT is highlighted. This survey also leads to feasible future directions that can support developers and researchers in this field.
The growth of quantum computing reveals a series of significant threats to cryptographic systems known today, such as RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman, which are extremely important for Internet security, but are threatened by the increase in possible quantum attacks. The area of public and private key cryptography is vast. Therefore, this article addresses post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms and the challenges of implementing them in Internet of Things (IoT) devices, given the difficulty of application due to restricted resources, such as RAM and clock speed . To this end, we will discuss the need for standardization of algorithms considering low-resource IoT devices, prioritizing RAM over ROM, meeting the needs of low-memory devices, which are lighter. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has validated four cryptographic systems that are secure against quantum attacks. We analyze the implications of these systems on the infrastructure of current networks and will compare in detail these algorithms and their respective strengths, weaknesses, and trade-offs. We evaluate the feasibility of post-quantum encryption (PQC) algorithms in resource-constrained IoT devices using the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller. Three cryptographic schemes were implemented and compared.