WireGuard is a pioneering and lightweight Virtual Private Network (VPN) protocol that has been merged into the Linux kernel. It leverages the Noise secure framework to provide advanced security functionalities, such as identity hiding and perfect forward security. Although WireGuard has an optional pre-shared key mode to ensure key security, the advanced security features are guaranteed by asymmetric cryptography algorithms, which cannot be held in the face of superior quantum computers. To achieve quantum-resistant security, WireGuard should avoid using vulnerable asymmetric cryptography algorithms that are currently deeply integrated into the WireGuard protocol. In this paper, we present a solution to enhance the security of WireGuard by integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). We first change the security mode to tunnel-orient Pre-Shared Keys (PSK) as the authentication anchor. We also design QKD-assisted ephemeral keys and corresponding Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) to achieve WireGuard's advanced security properties without using asymmetric cryptography. We also integrate QKD keys during the key derivation to provide further security. Finally, we implement the entire protocol named WireGuard-QKD in Golang and evaluate its performance and security.
WireGuard is a pioneering and lightweight Virtual Private Network (VPN) protocol that has been merged into the Linux kernel. It leverages the Noise secure framework to provide advanced security functionalities, such as identity hiding and perfect forward security. Although WireGuard has an optional pre-shared key mode to ensure key security, the advanced security features are guaranteed by asymmetric cryptography algorithms, which cannot be held in the face of superior quantum computers. To achieve quantum-resistant security, WireGuard should avoid using vulnerable asymmetric cryptography algorithms that are currently deeply integrated into the WireGuard protocol. In this paper, we present a solution to enhance the security of WireGuard by integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). We first change the security mode to tunnel-orient Pre-Shared Keys (PSK) as the authentication anchor. We also design QKD-assisted ephemeral keys and corresponding Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) to achieve WireGuard's advanced security properties without using asymmetric cryptography. We also integrate QKD keys during the key derivation to provide further security. Finally, we implement the entire protocol named WireGuard-QKD in Golang and evaluate its performance and security.
This paper presents a user-space integration of ML-KEM-768, a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, with WireGuard, a modern VPN protocol. Rather than modifying the Diffie-Hellman handshake of the X25519 elliptic curve at kernel level, the proposed approach establishes a Kyber-based shared secret over the sockets. It injects it as a Pre-Shared Key (PSK) into WireGuard’s Noise protocol. This enhances WireGuard’s resistance to quantum attacks without altering its core code. Experimental results demonstrate successful key agreement and acceptable performance overhead, making the solution viable for hybrid VPN deployments in the post-quantum era.
Quantum computing poses an immediate threat to VPN infrastructure through the "harvest now, decrypt later" attack model, where adversaries collect encrypted traffic today for future decryption with quantum computers. While existing VPN protocols await formal post-quantum standardization, practical protection is needed now. This paper presents a deployable solution for adding post-quantum security to WireGuard without modifying the protocol itself. Our approach leverages WireGuard's existing pre-shared key (PSK) mechanism, delivering quantum-resistant PSKs over channels protected by ML-KEM hybrid TLS 1.3. Through a carefully designed split-service architecture separating authentication from configuration management, we achieve both cryptographic and operational benefits. The authentication service handles client connections using post-quantum TLS, while the configuration service manages WireGuard settings with no direct network exposure, providing defense in depth. This architecture has been successfully deployed across ExpressVPN's global infrastructure, demonstrating its practicality at scale. The solution provides immediate quantum resistance with minimal performance impact (15-20ms additional connection establishment time, no impact on steady-state throughput), supports dynamic IP allocation and simplified key management, and can be implemented by engineering teams without deep cryptographic expertise. We provide detailed implementation guidance for deployments ranging from small (<1,000 users) to enterprise scale. Our work demonstrates that post-quantum WireGuard is achievable today using proven technologies and sound engineering principles, offering VPN providers a straightforward migration path to quantum resistance without abandoning existing WireGuard deployments.
This paper introduces qTrustNet VPN, a next-generation Virtual Private Network (VPN) designed to enhance security in the quantum era. As traditional encryption methods face obsolescence due to the advent of quantum computing, there is an urgent need for more robust security solutions. qTrustNet VPN addresses this need by ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of data transmission through the WireGuard protocol, known for its simplicity and high performance. At the core of qTrustNet VPN’s enhanced security is the integration of a Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithm, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This PQC algorithm is designed to withstand the decryption capabilities of quantum computers, thus providing long-term security. To further bolster security, the encryption key of the PQC algorithm is protected using Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) technology. PUFs offer a hardware-based security mechanism that is resistant to cloning and tampering, ensuring that the encryption keys remain secure against both classical and quantum attacks. This innovative combination of WireGuard protocol, PQC algorithms, and PUF technology creates a VPN system with significantly improved security features. To validate its effectiveness, the performance of the proposed qTrustNet VPN was rigorously evaluated in a 10GbE NIC network environment. The results demonstrated a remarkable throughput of up to 8.5 Gbps, ensuring high-speed data transmission capabilities. Additionally, the latency was measured at 1ms or less, highlighting the system’s efficiency in maintaining low-latency communication. In summary, qTrustNet VPN represents a significant advancement in VPN technology, offering robust security features tailored for the quantum era while maintaining high performance and low latency. This paper details the design, implementation, and performance evaluation of qTrustNet VPN, showcasing its potential to secure data transmission against emerging quantum threats.
This paper introduces qTrustNet VPN, a next-generation Virtual Private Network (VPN) designed to enhance security in the quantum era. With the rapid advancement of quantum computing, traditional encryption methods face obsolescence, necessitating more robust security solutions. qTrustNet VPN addresses this need by integrating the WireGuard protocol, known for its simplicity and high performance, with Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). These PQC algorithms are designed to withstand the decryption capabilities of quantum computers, providing long-term security.
We present a layered and modular network architecture that combines Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to provide scalable end-to-end security across long distance multi-hop, trusted-node quantum networks. To ensure interoperability and efficient practical deployment, hop-wise tunnels between physically secured nodes are protected by WireGuard with periodically rotated pre-shared keys sourced via the ETSI GS QKD 014 interface. On top, Rosenpass performs a PQC key exchange to establish an end-to-end data channel without modifying deployed QKD devices or network protocols. This dual-layer composition yields post-quantum forward secrecy and authenticity under practical assumptions. We implement the design using open-source components and validate and evaluate it in simulated and lab test-beds. Experiments show uninterrupted operation over multi-hop paths, low resource footprint and fail-safe mechanisms. We further discuss the design's compositional security, wherein the security of each individual component is preserved under their combination and outline migration paths for operators integrating QKD-aware overlays in existing infrastructures.
WireGuard is a widely adopted, modern, free and open-source VPN protocol known for its high performance, minimal codebase, and strong security. Like all VPN protocols relying on classical public-key cryptography, it faces a growing quantum threat in which adversaries are already collecting encrypted traffic today, intending to decrypt it once sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available, a strategy known as “harvest now, decrypt later”. This thesis evaluates the integration of two NIST-selected post-quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanisms (KEMs): ML-KEM and Hamming Quasi-Cyclic (HQC) into WireGuard’s handshake protocol. Both hybrid and pure-KEM handshake variants were designed and implemented in wireguard-go, the official userspace Go implementation of WireGuard, and benchmarked across handshake latency, message size, and per-peer storage requirements. Results show that ML-KEM integrates well as the hybrid ML-KEM768 variant fits within a single IPv4 packet, adds modest overhead to handshake latency, and keeps storage requirements manageable at scale. Pure ML-KEM variants achieve full post-quantum authentication at the cost of larger messages requiring fragmentation. HQC, by contrast, produces messages large enough to force heavy fragmentation per handshake, resulting in latencies that render it incompatible with WireGuard’s design in its current form. The findings suggest that a hybrid ML-KEM-768 deployment is achievable within existing WireGuard infrastructure today, offering protection against harvest now, decrypt later attacks without replacing the current static key infrastructure or causing significant performance degradation.