Recent achievements in designing quantum computers place a serious threat on the security of state-of-the-art public key cryptography and on all communication that relies on it. Meanwhile, security is seen as one of the most critical issues of low-power IoT devices even with pre-quantum public key cryptography since IoT devices have strict energy constraints and limited computational power. Thus, state-of-the-art dedicated hardware accelerators have been deployed to facilitate secure and confidential communication with well established protocols on such devices.
Recent achievements in designing quantum computers place a serious threat on the security of state-of-the-art public key cryptography and on all communication that relies on it. Meanwhile, security is seen as one of the most critical issues of low-power IoT devices even with pre-quantum public key cryptography since IoT devices have strict energy constraints and limited computational power. Thus, state-of-the-art dedicated hardware accelerators have been deployed to facilitate secure and confidential communication with well established protocols on such devices.
Recent progress in quantum computers severely endangers the security of widely used public-key cryptosystems and of all communication that relies on it. Thus, the US NIST is currently exploring new post-quantum cryptographic algorithms that are robust against quantum computers. Security is seen as one of the most critical issues of low-power IoT devices-even with pre-quantum public-key cryptography-since IoT devices have tight energy constraints, limited computational power and strict memory limitations. In this paper, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first in-depth investigation of the application of potential post-quantum key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs) and digital signature algorithms (DSAs) proposed in the related US NIST process to a state-of-the-art, TLS-based, low-power IoT infrastructure. We implemented these new KEMs and DSAs in such a representative infrastructure and measured their impact on energy consumption, latency and memory requirements during TLS handshakes on an IoT edge device. Based on our investigations, we gained the following new insights. First, we show that the main contributor to high TLS handshake latency is the higher bandwidth requirement of post-quantum primitives rather than the cryptographic computation itself. Second, we demonstrate that a smart combination of multiple DSAs yields the most energy-, latency- and memory-efficient public key infrastructures, in contrast to NIST's goal to standardize only one algorithm. Third, we show that code-based, isogeny-based and lattice-based algorithms can be implemented on a low-power IoT edge device based on an off-the-shelf Cortex M4 microcontroller while maintaining viable battery runtimes. This is contrary to much research that claims dedicated hardware accelerators are mandatory.
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.
Current improvements in quantum computing present a substantial challenge to classical cryptographic systems, which typically rely on problems that can be solved in polynomial time using quantum algorithms. Consequently, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has emerged as a promising solution to emerging quantum-based cryptographic challenges. The greatest threat is public-key cryptosystems, which are primarily responsible for key exchanges. In PQC, key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs) are crucial for securing key exchange protocols, particularly in Internet communication, virtual private networks (VPNs), and secure messaging applications. CRYSTALS-Kyber and NTRU are two well-known PQC KEMs offering robust security in the quantum world. However, even when quantum computers are functional, they are not easily accessible. IoT devices will not be able to utilize them directly, so there will still be a requirement to protect IoT devices from quantum attacks. Concerns such as limited computational power, energy efficiency, and memory constraints in devices such as those used in IoTs, embedded systems, and smart cards limit the use of these techniques in constrained environments. These concerns always arise there. To address this issue, this study conducts a broad comparative analysis of Kyber and NTRU, with special focus on their security, performance, and implementation efficiency in such environments (IOT/constrained environments). In addition, a case study was conducted by applying KEMs to a low-power embedded device to analyze their performance in real-world scenarios. These results offer an important comparison for cyber security engineers and cryptographers who are involved in integrating post-quantum cryptography into resource-constrained devices.
A recent trend in the IT world is the term Internet of Things (IoT). As more and more devices get connected to the internet, and with companies trying to lower production costs in order to stay competitive, security can easily be neglected. In this report traditional Transport Layer Security (TLS) implementations and post-quantum based TLS were evaluated and performance measurements were conducted. The initial attempt was to run post-quantum secure algorithms on an IoT device in order to see if an IoT device theoretically would be able to withstand an attack from a quantum computer. Due to memory constraints it was not possible to run the modified version of the cryptography library, PolarSSL, on the intended IoT device. For that reason we switched to another platform, namely a Raspberry Pi. The measurements were conducted on that platform and in-depth analysis was performed to determine if current implementations of post-quantum algorithms can be suitable for IoT devices or not. The conclusion was that post-quantum algorithms are more time-consuming than traditional algorithms used today. One of the experiments in this report shows that using a post-quantum algorithm for the key exchange is 2.5 times slower and needs 10 times as much RAM memory than a traditional solution with the same security level. There is therefore no apparent need to start using post-quantum algorithms today in terms of security level, when considering the duration and RAM usage for the key exchange. With time and optimization some of the algorithms evaluated in this report, or similar algorithms, could be good candidates the day large quantum computers are produced.
The accelerated development of quantum computers poses a direct threat to all current standards of public key encryption, for example, the Shor algorithm exploits the superposition state of the qubits to solve the problem of integer factorization in polynomial time, rendering all systems whose security relies on this hard mathematical problem not secure. Public key encryption algorithms are used in a multitude of applications that from the core of the digital world (e.g., emails, banking, digital currency, defense, and communication.). The prospects of a quantum machine that can break such systems are too risky to ignore, even if such a computer still needs thirty years to build. This is because adversaries can be storing data now to decrypt later aka. SNLD attack, moreover, some systems have an operational lifetime that spans more than thirty years (e.g., defense, aviation industry). Consequently, the work has already started to develop quantum-attack resilient security schemes. The number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is expected to be around 29 billion in 2030, forming a significant portion of all computing machines. Most of these will be implemented as embedded systems with limited resources. Consequently, assessing the energy and computational overheads of the quantum-attack resilient security schemes is vital. This work presents a comprehensive study that evaluates the energy and performance costs of the proposed solutions in resource-constrained devices, in comparison with the existing schemes. This was achieved through the development of a testbed that emulates a client-server configuration, wherein both devices perform mutual authentication and then agree on a shared key using the TLS protocol. A Raspberry Pi 3b+ was used as a server, and a client in the first set of experiments. Raspberry Pi Pico W was the client in the second group of tests. The results of the evaluation have shown that Kyber1-Dilithuim-2 is the most resource-efficient solution, it outperforms all other PQC algorithms, including the current scheme that uses elliptic curve cryptography. Our study has also shown the digital signature scheme Sphinx+ is associated with significant latency and energy costs so may not be suitable for IoT-type devices.
Quantum computing poses a significant threat to classical asymmetric cryptography, which is essential for ensuring confidentiality, authentication, and key exchange in contemporary digital infrastructures. Although post-quantum cryptography (PQC) provides mechanisms that resist quantum attacks, its implementation in Internet of Things (IoT) systems is challenged by constrained resources, including limitations in computation, memory, energy, latency, and bandwidth, and the heterogeneity of devices. This paper offers a comprehensive narrative review of PQC approaches applicable to IoT, systematically organizing 30 peer-reviewed studies published between 2022 and 2026 across four layers: device, communication, distributed trust, and application. Additionally, the review examines two cross-cutting dimensions, privacy and side-channel resistance. The analysis indicates a significant prevalence of lattice-based schemes, hybrid strategies, and integrations with blockchain technology, zero-knowledge proofs, federated learning, homomorphic encryption, AI, and Zero Trust architectures. Notably, key gaps remain in side-channel evaluation, migration pathways, deployment costs, and real-world validation—issues that are particularly critical given the long lifecycles of IoT devices and the ongoing threat of “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks.