Quantum Computing and Communication | NIST

Emanuel H. Knill

Ali Shahidinejad, Jemal Abawajy, Shamsul Huda

Recent advances in quantum computing threaten key exchange protocols based on problems like prime factorization and discrete logarithms. In response, NIST is standardizing post-quantum cryptographic methods, selecting CRYSTALS-Kyber for its efficiency. However, Kyber’s key exchange protocol assumes prior authenticated communication and requires significant computational overhead. To address these limitations, we propose a NIST-compliant, quantum-resistant, password-authenticated key exchange protocol for mobile devices. Built on Kyber’s encryption primitives, it achieves mutual authentication and perfect forward secrecy. Compared to Kyber’s original protocol, ours reduces communication and computation costs by 46% and 67%, respectively. It also ensures strong anonymity and resists common attacks. Formal proofs and hardware implementation confirm its security and efficiency.

Paul E. Black, D. Richard Kuhn, Carl J. Williams

Bagus Hendra Saputra, Jonson Manurung, Jeremia Paskah Sinaga

The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses a critical threat to classical public-key cryptographic systems widely used in defense communication infrastructures, while the practical deployment of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) remains constrained by excessive key sizes, computational overhead, and energy consumption in bandwidth- and latency-sensitive military environments. This study aims to develop and evaluate a quantum-inspired multi-objective optimization framework to enhance the operational feasibility of standardized PQC schemes without compromising cryptographic security. The proposed method applies a Quantum Genetic Algorithm (QGA) to optimize configuration parameters of CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium by simultaneously balancing security strength, computational performance, resource efficiency, and deployability. Experiments were conducted using official NIST test vectors and defense-oriented communication scenarios, with performance evaluated across encryption and signature latency, throughput, key and signature sizes, memory footprint, and energy consumption, while security was validated against classical and quantum attack models. The results demonstrate that the optimized configurations achieve key and signature size reductions of up to 10.3%, throughput improvements of up to 15.5%, and energy consumption reductions of up to 12.5% compared to baseline NIST implementations, while fully maintaining NIST security levels and robust resistance to quantum adversaries. These improvements significantly enhance the suitability of PQC for tactical radios, satellite communications, and resource-constrained defense platforms. The findings indicate that quantum-inspired multi-objective optimization is a critical enabler for transitioning post-quantum cryptography from theoretical security constructs to deployable, mission-ready solutions in real-world defense systems.

Michael Brooks

Taniya Hasija, K. R. Ramkumar, Amanpreet Kaur +2 more

The tremendous increase in the volume of data over internet for many applications such as banking, hospitals, insurance, online trading, messengers, voice communications and others has resulted in increased security threats. Due to the evaluation in the quantum computer generation, the classical cryptography algorithm will be broken in very less amount of time and lead to the security breaches and malicious attacks. The National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) has invited a new generation of Quantum Safe cryptography. First two rounds are completed successfully, and the finalist has been announced. This paper provides an in-depth examination of NIST third round selected candidates which are going to be the standard Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithm. Also, the limitations and attacking concerns related to that PQC algorithms are presented.