Although there has been a substantial boost in automation due to the rapid growth of IoT devices, there has also been an increase in cyberattack vulnerability. Existing quantum-proof methods are inadequate for IoT devices with limited resources, and traditional cryptographic algorithms lack quantum safety. In response, we propose a lightweight, quantum-safe authentication system that utilizes Quantum-PUF to ensure secure communication, employing Xor Encryption and one-way hash functions without storing keys in non-volatile memory. We conduct formal verification using Scyther and implement it on NodeMCU, demonstrating the efficiency of our protocol and its suitability for Industrial Internet of Things applications.
Although there has been a substantial boost in automation due to the rapid growth of IoT devices, there has also been an increase in cyberattack vulnerability. Existing quantum-proof methods are inadequate for IoT devices with limited resources, and traditional cryptographic algorithms lack quantum safety. In response, we propose a lightweight, quantum-safe authentication system that utilizes Quantum-PUF to ensure secure communication, employing Xor Encryption and one-way hash functions without storing keys in non-volatile memory. We conduct formal verification using Scyther and implement it on NodeMCU, demonstrating the efficiency of our protocol and its suitability for Industrial Internet of Things applications.
The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has connected billions of smart devices across healthcare, transportation, industrial automation, and smart home environments. While IoT has enhanced automation and data-driven decision-making, its widespread deployment has also increased the risk of cyberattacks. Conventional public-key cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) are vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks, particularly those based on Shor's algorithm. This paper proposes a Quantum-Resistant Cryptographic Framework (QRCF) for secure IoT communication using lattice-based cryptography integrated with lightweight authentication and efficient key management. The framework is designed to meet the computational limitations of IoT devices while ensuring long-term confidentiality and integrity. Performance evaluation demonstrates improvements in security resilience, authentication efficiency, and communication reliability compared with traditional cryptographic approaches. The proposed framework offers a scalable and future-ready solution for protecting IoT ecosystems in the post-quantum era.
The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems has introduced significant security challenges due to resource-constrained devices, heterogeneous network architectures, and largescale connectivity. Traditional authentication and key exchange mechanisms, primarily based on classical cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and ECC, are vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks. The emergence of quantum algorithms, particularly Shor’s algorithm, threatens the long-term confidentiality and integrity of IoT communications. This paper proposes a Quantum-Resistant Authentication and Key Exchange Protocol specifically designed for secure IoT architectures. The proposed framework integrates post-quantum cryptographic primitives, including lattice-based key exchange mechanisms and hash-based authentication schemes, optimized for low computational overhead suitable for constrained IoT devices. The protocol ensures mutual authentication, forward secrecy, and resistance against quantum adversaries while maintaining minimal communication latency. Security analysis demonstrates robustness against replay, man-in-the-middle, and key-compromise attacks. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed solution achieves a balance between quantum security strength and resource efficiency, making it suitable for next-generation IoT deployments in smart cities, healthcare systems, and industrial automation.
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has revolutionized digital communication, yet it simultaneously poses unprecedented security challenges due to constrained device capabilities and increasing cyber threats. Conventional cryptographic techniques, while currently effective, are vulnerable to emerging quantum computing technologies that threaten to render classical encryption obsolete. This paper explores the integration of quantum-safe cryptographic techniques within IoT networks to ensure long-term confidentiality, integrity, and authentication. It examines post-quantum cryptographic primitives, including lattice-based, hash-based, multivariate, and code-based schemes, and evaluates their suitability for resource-constrained IoT environments. The study focuses on lightweight implementation strategies, balancing computational efficiency with robust security requirements. Simulation analyses demonstrate that properly optimized quantum safe protocols can provide resilient encryption, key exchange, and digital signature functionalities without overwhelming device resources. Furthermore, the integration of these techniques with IoT communication standards and secure network protocols ensures end-to-end protection across heterogeneous networks. Challenges such as latency, energy consumption, and scalability are addressed, highlighting the necessity of tailored cryptographic solutions for diverse IoT applications. The findings confirm that quantum safe cryptography is essential for future-proofing IoT networks, offering sustainable security measures that remain resilient against both classical and quantum adversaries, thereby supporting the continued expansion of secure and intelligent interconnected systems.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has ushered in significant advancements in networked technologies, yet it simultaneously raises concerns about the security and privacy of connected devices. Traditional authentication methods based on cryptographic protocols are increasingly vulnerable to attacks as the number of devices grows and attackers develop more sophisticated strategies. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum-based authentication method using Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) to address the security challenges in IoT devices. Quantum PUFs exploit the inherent quantum properties of devices to generate unique, unclonable responses to challenges, providing a high level of security and resilience against attacks such as cloning, spoofing, and interception. We present the architecture of the proposed quantum authentication system, discuss the challenge-response protocol, and evaluate the system’s performance. Experimental results show that this approach offers strong security guarantees with minimal computational overhead. We Evaluate the Security, Scalability of our approach in simulated adverse IoT environment.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) integrates control systems with IoT technology to enable automation and intelligent operations in industrial environments. As IIoT deployments expand, reliance on wireless communication channels increases the attack surface and exposes systems to various security and privacy threats. Moreover, the limited computational capabilities of IIoT devices and the need to preserve device anonymity introduce additional security requirements. Insufficient protection against these challenges can result in operational disruption and significant economic losses. Existing symmetric-key and hash-based schemes are lightweight but lack scalability for large IIoT deployments, whereas public-key methods provide stronger security. However, the emergence of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of such protocols, as quantum algorithms can efficiently break conventional number-theoretic cryptosystems. To address these challenges, we propose a quantum-resistant three-party authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocol for the IIoT. The ring learning with errors (RLWE)-based protocol provides quantum-safe and efficient mutual authentication and secure session key establishment between workers and devices. Comprehensive security and performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed protocol is robust against security attacks. Performance evaluations confirm lower computational and communication overhead than existing post-quantum schemes, proving its practicality for IIoT.
Internet of Things (IoT) is the next era of communication networks. The concept of IoT is that everything within the global communication network is interconnected and accessible. Since IoT has various applications, including Industry 4.0. Therefore, upcoming and existing IoT applications are highly auspicious to enhance the level of automation, efficiency, and comfort for the users. However, to a certain extent, there are numerous challenges while deploying IoT devices in the Industry 4.0, like IoT devices are assumed to have inadequate resources to support security solutions. Therefore, in order to protect the communication environment, an efficient and lightweight security solution is needed. Recently, on the basis of a hierarchical approach, Garget al.presented a lightweight, robust key agreement, and provably secure authentication protocol for the IoT environment. Their introduced protocol relies on lightweight operations, including XOR operation, concatenation, hash function, physically unclonable function (PUF), and elliptic curve cryptography. However, in this comment, we point out the security loopholes of Garget al.’s protocol and show that it is vulnerable to the IoT-node impersonation attack. Moreover, it has irrelevant generation and usage of some parameters. Therefore, we put forward some valuable suggestions for attack resilience.