Public key cryptography and signature schemes are essential for reliable digital communication. Asymmetric encryption has been achieved through complex algorithms, such as RSA and Diffie-Hellman, but recent advancements in quantum computing pose threats to the security of these algorithms in the near future as a quantum computer may solve the problems these algorithms are based on. Therefore, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms have been proposed and investigated by an international community of scientists, especially through the NIST PQC competition ongoing since 2016. They have gathered and classified four different key exchange algorithms and three signature schemes. This paper focuses on implementing the signature schemes inside a popular open-source Android email application as a plug-in and comparing their performances based on this app plug-in utilization. We have used a library, liboqs, from the Open Quantum Safe project as the starting point, which ensures regularity in our results. We also compare the current standard candidate signature schemes with the currently used standard RSA-4096. Our results show that Dilithium has noticeably faster key generation, signing, and verification with the relatively affordable key and signature size. Also, to the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first practical Android email application plug-in supporting PQ-based signatures.
Public key cryptography and signature schemes are essential for reliable digital communication. Asymmetric encryption has been achieved through complex algorithms, such as RSA and Diffie-Hellman, but recent advancements in quantum computing pose threats to the security of these algorithms in the near future as a quantum computer may solve the problems these algorithms are based on. Therefore, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms have been proposed and investigated by an international community of scientists, especially through the NIST PQC competition ongoing since 2016. They have gathered and classified four different key exchange algorithms and three signature schemes. This paper focuses on implementing the signature schemes inside a popular open-source Android email application as a plug-in and comparing their performances based on this app plug-in utilization. We have used a library, liboqs, from the Open Quantum Safe project as the starting point, which ensures regularity in our results. We also compare the current standard candidate signature schemes with the currently used standard RSA-4096. Our results show that Dilithium has noticeably faster key generation, signing, and verification with the relatively affordable key and signature size. Also, to the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first practical Android email application plug-in supporting PQ-based signatures.
Information security is a fundamental and urgent issue in the digital transformation era. Cryptographic techniques and digital signatures have been applied to protect and authenticate relevant information. However, with the advent of quantum computers and quantum algorithms, classical cryptographic techniques have been in danger of collapsing because quantum computers can solve complex problems in polynomial time. Stemming from that risk, researchers worldwide have stepped up research on post-quantum algorithms to resist attack by quantum computers. In this review paper, we survey studies in recent years on post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and provide statistics on the number and content of publications, including a literature overview, detailed explanations of the most common methods so far, current implementation status, implementation comparisons, and discussion on future work. These studies focused on essential public cryptography techniques and digital signature schemes, and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a competition to select the best candidate for the expected standard. Recent studies have practically implemented the public key encryption/key encapsulation mechanism (PKE/KEM) and digital signature schemes on different hardware platforms and applied various optimization measures based on other criteria. Along with the increasing number of scientific publications, the recent trend of PQC research is increasingly evident and is the general trend in the cryptography industry. The movement opens up a promising avenue for researchers in public key cryptography and digital signatures, especially on algorithms selected by NIST.
The advent of quantum computing presents a significant threat to the security of asymmetric cryptographic algorithms, necessitating the adoption of new cryptographic mechanisms resilient to quantum-based attacks. This need is particularly critical for applications that rely exclusively on public-key cryptography, such as digital signatures. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the performance of various post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, focusing specifically on NIST-standardized digital signature algorithms—SPHINCS+ and Dilithium—and their practical implementations. The study evaluates these algorithms across different programming languages to identify optimal environments for diverse applications. Comparative analyses with the widely used RSA algorithm reveal that the computational cost of adopting post-quantum cryptographic systems is relatively low. Notably, some post-quantum algorithms demonstrate performance advantages over classical RSA in specific scenarios.
The concept of Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) gains profound importance considering the imminent arrival of quantum computers.PQC involves security techniques that can withstand attacks from both regular and quantum computers.This urgency arises due to the anticipated progress in quantum computing, which poses significant risks to traditional cryptographic methods.As a result, there is a pressing need to swiftly establish PQC solutions to address these potential vulnerabilities.This research delves into various Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) digital signature algorithms, examining their robustness against brute force attacks, network performance, and energy consumption.Also, the study focuses on MPPK/DS (Multivariate polynomial public key digital signature) algorithm in generating the Python code and further utilizing true random numbers from a quantum computer, secure MPPK/DS key pairs are generated, and their robustness is measured through semi-covariance correlation analysis, revealing MPPK's superior resilience compared to RSA and SPHINCS+.The study further assesses latency performance on 5G, Wi-Fi, and local networks, highlighting efficacy for real-world use.Additionally, the research addresses the energy consumption of all the major PQC NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) selected digital signature algorithms, stressing the significance of cryptographic solutions that can work well in conjunction with resourceconstrained upcoming intelligent networks of devices.As we move towards a quantumsafe cryptographic landscape, this work's contributions provide valuable insights for securing the digital realm in the face of emerging quantum threats.The research outcomes and developments are shared openly with the research community to facilitate further comparisons and advancements in the field of PQC algorithms.
The threats are existential to the traditional cryptosystems of public keys, including RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), due to the rapid progress in quantum computing. Such algorithms as the Shor and Grover algorithms prove that as soon as large scale quantum computers are achieved, these classical cryptographic protocols will not provide any privacy and integrity to online communication. This has created an emergency to find post-quantum cryptography (PQC), or quantum-safe cryptography, which will resist attacks by both classical and quantum attackers. The paper is a review of the latest research and development in post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and their implementation in current security systems. We organize quantum-safe methods into significant organizations such as lattice-based, hash-based, multivariate polynomial-based and code-based encrypted communications. Each type has been evaluated critically based on computational efficiency, key sizes, speed of encryption/decryption and security proofs. The survey also examines the current standardization activities happening in the world and especially the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) PQC competition, which lists candidate algorithms that have advanced to standard adoption. Besides this, the paper addresses hybrid cryptographic designs that use both classical and post-quantum bases in ensuring a seamless migration in the transition phase. Internet security protocols like TLS, VPNs and blockchain consensus as applications of PQC are examined in detail. Lastly, we pinpoint open research issues, which include creating lightweight PQC to support resource-constrained IoT devices, balancing performance and strong security assurances, and interoperability between the new PQC algorithms and existing infrastructures. Through detailed survey we inform the future of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers on the preparation of the post-quantum era of secure digital communications.
Quantum computing challenges the mathematical problems anchoring the security of the classical public key algorithms. For quantum-resistant public key algorithms, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has undergone a multi-year standardization process and selected the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) public key digital signatures of Dilithium, Falcon, and SPHINCS+. Finding common ground to compare these algorithms can be difficult because of their design differences, including the fundamental math problems (lattice-based vs. hash-based). We use a visualization model to show the key/signature size vs. security trade-offs for all PQC algorithms. Our performance analyses compare the algorithms’ computational loads in the execution time. Building on the individual algorithms’ analyses, we analyze the communication costs and implementation overheads when integrated with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and with Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP). Our results show that the lattice-based algorithms of Dilithium and Falcon induce lower computational overheads than the hash-based algorithms of SPHINCS+. In addition, the lattice-based PQC can outperform the classical algorithm with comparable security strength; for example, Dilithium 2 and Falcon 512 outperform RSA 4096 in the TLS handshake time duration.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses a fundamental threat to classical cryptographic mechanisms that underpin modern digital security. Shor’s algorithm can efficiently solve integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems, thereby breaking widely used public-key cryptosystems such as RSA, ECC, and Diffie–Hellman. Grover’s algorithm also reduces the effective security of symmetric encryption and hash functions by half. This paper provides a systematic analysis of the impact of quantum attacks on current cryptographic infrastructures, including TLS, digital signatures, and blockchain. We then review the state of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) as standardized by NIST, focusing on three leading candidates: CRYSTALS-Kyber for key encapsulation, and CRYSTALS-Dilithium and FALCON for digital signatures. Through simulation using the Open Quantum Safe (liboqs) library on a standard x86_64 platform, we measure key generation time, encryption/signing speed, decryption/verification latency, and key/signature sizes. Our results show that Kyber-768 achieves key generation in <0.1 ms and produces public keys of about 1.2 KB, while Dilithium-3 generates signatures of ~2.7 KB with verification times under 0.3 ms. Compared to RSA-2048 and ECDSA-P256, PQC algorithms offer competitive performance at the cost of larger key and signature sizes. Based on these findings, we propose a hybrid transition roadmap that combines classical and PQC algorithms in parallel, minimizing risk while maintaining backward compatibility. The paper concludes that organizations should begin immediate preparations for the post-quantum era, especially for data requiring long-term confidentiality.