With the increasing speed in the development of quantum computers, secure communication is at risk. A promising candidate to replace existing cryptographic patterns with quantum-secure variants is Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). This paper presents an empirical analysis of how Post-Quantum Cryptography affects real-world performance compared to classical cryptography. Therefore we analyze the Transport Layer Security (TLS) handshake performance showing that Post-Quantum Cryptography can be as fast or even faster than classical cryptography, depending on the specific encryption and signature algorithms used.
With the increasing speed in the development of quantum computers, secure communication is at risk. A promising candidate to replace existing cryptographic patterns with quantum-secure variants is Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). This paper presents an empirical analysis of how Post-Quantum Cryptography affects real-world performance compared to classical cryptography. Therefore we analyze the Transport Layer Security (TLS) handshake performance showing that Post-Quantum Cryptography can be as fast or even faster than classical cryptography, depending on the specific encryption and signature algorithms used.
The emergence of quantum computing presents a significant threat to classical cryptographic primitives, particularly those employed in securing internet communications via widely used protocols such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). As conventional key exchange mechanisms will become increasingly vulnerable in the post-quantum era, the integration of post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms into existing security protocols is of utmost importance. This study investigates the impact of incorporating PQC key encapsulation mechanisms—specifically, the recent standards CRYSTALS-Kyber and HQC, in conjunction with the candidate standard BIKE—into the TLS 1.3 handshake. A comprehensive experimental evaluation was conducted to measure handshake latency under emulated network conditions with varying packet loss probabilities. The findings offer useful insights into the performance trade-offs introduced by PQC integration and further highlight the necessity of a timely transition to post-quantum cryptographic standards.
Quantum Computers (QCs) differ radically from traditional computers and can efficiently solve mathematical problems fundamental to our current cryptographic algorithms. Although existing QCs need to accommodate more qubits to break cryptographic algorithms, the concern of ''Store-Now-Decrypt-Later'' (i.e., adversaries store encrypted data today and decrypt them once powerful QCs become available) highlights the necessity to adopt quantum-safe approaches as soon as possible. In this work, we investigate the performance impact of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) on TLS 1.3. Different signature algorithms and key agreements (as proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) are examined through black- and white-box measurements to get precise handshake latencies and computational costs per participating library. We emulated loss, bandwidth, and delay to analyze constrained environments. Our results reveal that HQC and Kyber are on par with our current state-of-the-art, while Dilithium and Falcon are even faster. We observed no performance drawback from using hybrid algorithms; moreover, on higher NIST security levels, PQC outperformed any algorithm in use today. Hence, we conclude that post-quantum TLS is suitable for adoption in today's systems.
Abstract It is viewed as revolutionary technology, offering incredible potential in terms of computing power within different scientific and industrial sectors. Quantum computers provide remarkable computing power; however, they also present significant security risks to existing public-key cryptography systems used to secure digital communication, online banking systems, government, medical applications, cloud computing systems, and IoT systems. Security of commonly used encryption schemes like RSA, DH, and ECC depends on mathematical problems that are impossible for classical computers to solve but can be easily resolved with the help of powerful enough quantum computers by using Shor’s algorithm. Furthermore, Grover’s algorithm makes exhaustive search attacks much faster, thus effectively lowering the security level of symmetric encryption schemes since it provides the speed-up for brute-force attacks. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) turned out to be an effective and scalable method to protect digital data from attacks using quantum computing. In contrast to quantum cryptography, which requires a special quantum communication channel, PQC uses classical cryptographic algorithms that cannot be broken down by either classical or quantum computer due to certain mathematical problems. This research paper offers an extensive exploration of post-quantum cryptography through the analysis of the development of quantum computing, weaknesses of current cryptographic techniques, and mathematics behind quantum-resistant algorithms. Moreover, this paper explores the major classes of PQC techniques such as lattice-based, code-based, hash-based, multivariate, and isogeny-based cryptography and provides details about their security and application. Moreover, the report gives an overview of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project and analyzes recent standardizations of quantum-proof algorithms to be utilized in future digital infrastructures. Keywords: Post-Quantum Encryption, Quantum Security, Quantum-Proof Public-Key Cryptography, Lattice-Based Security Protocols, ML-KEM Key Encapsulation Mechanism, ML-DSA Digital Signature Algorithm, NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography, Contemporary Cybersecurity, Secure Communications, Cryptographic Algorithms.
Aim: The imminent advent of large-scale quantum computers within the next years is expected to highly affect the security of several cryptosystems that are now considered secure; this mainly holds for classical, long-established, public key cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. Apparently, any security protocol that relies on such ciphers, including the transport layer security (TLS) protocol which constitutes a somewhat de facto standard for the security on the web, will not be considered secure in the post-quantum era. To alleviate the security risks stemming from quantum computing, several proposals have been submitted to the relevant procedure initiated by NIST towards evaluating and standardizing one or more quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms. This paper focuses on embedding post-quantum secure cryptographic algorithms into the TLS protocol to analyze its performance. More precisely, the paper aims to analyze whether this transition to post-quantum secure algorithms will have a significant impact on the user experience due to the possible increase of client--server communication times. Methods: Having as the starting point several important works in the field, several experiments were carried out, using combinations of cloud and local virtual machines per case and considering all the post-quantum cryptographic algorithm finalists for key exchange from the third round of the ongoing NIST process, for various cryptographic as well as network parameters. Results: Our results exhibit that, for key exchange in TLS, the best performance among the post-quantum secure ciphers is achieved by the Saber and CRYSTAL-Kyber variants for all security levels, regardless of the underlying computing power. The performance is comparable to that of the corresponding one achieved by a classical elliptic curve algorithm for key exchange for both RTT and packet loss ratio — i.e., the network parameters seem to have the same effect on post-quantum secure algorithms as in the case of a conventional elliptic curve algorithm. However, the effect of the network parameters on the performance is more crucial than the effect of the underlying chosen ciphers. Conclusion: According to the experiments, we conclude that there exist very promising algorithms that could be utilized in TLS in the near future, which may behave even better than the conventional elliptic curve algorithms for key exchange. It should also be pointed out that NIST announced on 5 July 2022 (i.e., after the completion of our research experiments) that, for general encryption used when we access secure websites, the CRYSTALS-Kyber algorithm has been selected, having as one of its advantages the speed of operation. Hence, the results of our paper are fully in line with the progress of the NIST process. Taking into account that the NIST process is still ongoing (now in its fourth round) with the aim to select more algorithms, as well as that some algorithms may be standardized outside NIST, it becomes evident that our results provide very useful insights on performance aspects of the post-quantum secure algorithms.
We benchmark the TLS 1.3 handshake using post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, including both key encapsulation mechanisms and digital signature schemes, and compare them against traditional, non-quantum-safe counterparts. Our evaluation covers all FIPS-approved post-quantum standards (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA), as well as a selection of digital signature schemes from second-round candidates of the NIST PQC competition that are available in the liboqs library from the Open Quantum Safe project. To assess real-world performance, we simulate various network conditions (rate, delay, and losses) and analyze the impact of post-quantum cryptography on TLS connection latency.
With the progression of quantum computing technology, traditional cryptographic protocols encounter flaws that may compromise their efficacy against quantum-based assaults. This study examines quantum-resistant protocols that include post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to enhance the security of existing network protocols, particularly the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This research examines the efficiency, compatibility, and adaptability of post-quantum algorithms, including lattice-based, code-based, and hash-based cryptographic methods, inside the TLS protocol architecture. The study's findings emphasize the comparative performance metrics and compatibility factors, providing insights into the future of secure network communications in the post-quantum age.