With the continuous development of quantum computing technology, the traditional public key cryptosystem is facing severe security challenges, especially in the resource-constrained UAV swarm communication scenario. To deal with this problem, this paper proposes a secure communication scheme for the post-quantum era, which combines the Kyber-based group key agreement mechanism and the lightweight identity authentication system constructed by sparse Merkle tree (SMT). The system is initialized by the edge node, and supports the dynamic joining and leaving of the UAV through the authentication and key management mechanism. To meet the security and performance requirements in different application scenarios, we design and integrate two mainstream post-quantum signature schemes to provide flexible identity authentication options. Experimental results show that the scheme has low resource overhead while ensuring security, which is suitable for the actual communication deployment of post-quantum UAV swarm.
With the continuous development of quantum computing technology, the traditional public key cryptosystem is facing severe security challenges, especially in the resource-constrained UAV swarm communication scenario. To deal with this problem, this paper proposes a secure communication scheme for the post-quantum era, which combines the Kyber-based group key agreement mechanism and the lightweight identity authentication system constructed by sparse Merkle tree (SMT). The system is initialized by the edge node, and supports the dynamic joining and leaving of the UAV through the authentication and key management mechanism. To meet the security and performance requirements in different application scenarios, we design and integrate two mainstream post-quantum signature schemes to provide flexible identity authentication options. Experimental results show that the scheme has low resource overhead while ensuring security, which is suitable for the actual communication deployment of post-quantum UAV swarm.
Secure communication in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks is critical for a wide range of civil and military applications, from precision agriculture and disaster response to critical infrastructure monitoring. These missions require lightweight, tamper-resistant, and quantum-secure authentication mechanisms. We examine the recently proposed Quantum-Resistant Identity Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme for UAV Networks Based on the Kyber Algorithm (LIGKYX) and demonstrate its critical weaknesses, including a lack of Perfect Forward/Backward Secrecy (PFS/PBS), and desynchronization vulnerabilities. To address these limitations, we propose a novel authentication and key agreement protocol that integrates SRAM-based Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) with the Kyber post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, eliminating the reliance on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and stateful counters used in LIGKYX. The security of the proposed protocol is validated through both formal and informal analyses, demonstrating strong resistance to replay, impersonation, man-in-the-middle, desynchronization, and UAV capture attacks. Performance evaluation confirms its efficiency: the total communication overhead is reduced by 7.1% (from 1836 bytes in LIGKYX to 1705 bytes in the proposed scheme), and the total authentication time is reduced by more than 54%, from 87.84 ms in LIGKYX to 40.23 ms in the proposed scheme. These improvements demonstrate that the protocol not only strengthens security but also significantly reduces computation and communication costs. Overall, the proposed solution offers a lightweight, scalable, and quantum-resistant authentication framework tailored for resource-constrained UAV environments, representing a substantial advancement over existing schemes such as LIGKYX.
Resource-constrained unmanned aerial vehicle–ground control station (UAV–GCS) communications face substantial post-quantum authentication costs, expensive cryptographic operations triggered by invalid requests, and key-state desynchronization during rekeying. To address these problems, this paper proposes QUAD, a lightweight hybrid post-quantum authentication and key agreement protocol. QUAD combines request pre-authentication, hybrid key establishment, and mutual key confirmation to reject invalid requests before costly cryptographic operations. It also allows a bounded transition period for receiving records under the old and new keys to mitigate key-state inconsistencies caused by link disruptions. Confidentiality and authentication are analyzed using ProVerif, while cryptographic and communication overhead, denial-of-service scenarios, and key-update behavior are evaluated on a Raspberry Pi platform. Under the specified security model, QUAD satisfies the tested authentication and confidentiality properties, reduces the computational burden of invalid requests, and improves bidirectional communication continuity under selected packet-loss conditions. These findings support its feasibility for post-quantum security in resource-constrained UAV–GCS links.
With the widespread deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in both military and civilian domains, the demand for secure and encrypted communications in UAV networks integrated with ground stations has become increasingly prominent. Authentication and key agreement protocols are widely regarded as essential technical mechanisms for ensuring the security of data transmission in wireless communication environments. However, the rapid advancement of quantum computing technologies poses potential security threats to conventional protocols based on elliptic curve cryptography. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a quantum-secure authentication and key agreement protocol tailored for UAV–ground station communication scenarios. By incorporating Crystal-Kyber, the proposed protocol ensures quantum resistance while striving to minimize system computational overhead. The results of the informal security analysis indicate that the proposed protocol can effectively withstand a variety of known attacks. In addition, comprehensive comparative evaluations with existing related protocols demonstrate that, while maintaining low computational overhead, the proposed scheme exhibits stronger robustness in terms of security and functional properties.
The seamless integration of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) into public airspace necessitates a robust UAV Traffic Management (UTM) system. Information security in communications plays a pivotal role in ensuring the operational safety of the UTM. Maintaining the integrity and authentication of unicast communications, such as command and video information, is imperative to thwart tampering and impersonation. Encryption emerges as an optimal solution for safeguarding such data. Efficient utilization of symmetrical encryption mandates the imple-mentation of secure key exchange mechanisms. However, intro-ducingAuthenticated Key Exchange (AKE) standards on diminutive Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) encounters problems due to hardware limitations. To surmount this challenge, lightweight cryptographic algorithms tailored for resource-constrained hard-ware have been developed. Nonetheless, both lightweight and conventional cryptographic algorithms are susceptible to quantum computing threats. In response, post-quantum cryptographic primitives are undergoing standardization. This study assesses post-quantumKey Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) candidates, namely CRYSTALS-Kyber, Hamming Quasi-Cyclic (HQC), and BIKE, on hardware resembling small UAVs. The evaluation of these algorithms focuses on computation time, considering real-time tasks during flights. The findings affirm the viability of employing unmodified standards on resource-constrained hardware concurrently with other priority tasks. Furthermore, quantum-vulnerable standards are also investigated to compare their performance against their more secure counterparts. All three post-quantum KEM candidates demonstrate usability in this environment, with CRYSTALS-Kyber being recommended for its superior performance, even surpassing certain prevailing standards.
The use of drones in military operations is a growing phenomenon that presents substantial security implications, especially related to authentication, data integrity, and the treatment of cyber threats. While traditional schemes like Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) have computational efficiency, they are susceptible to quantum attacks. To solve the aforementioned problem, in this paper, we design a Lightweight and Quantum Resistant Authentication Protocol for Military IoD Using Dilithium Signatures, which is a post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) method implemented using the PQC solution based on lattice-based cryptographic evidence. The proposed protocol provides quantum-safe mutual authentication of drones, soldiers, and the command center (CC) while also protecting against impersonation attacks and side-channel attacks. In contrast to ECC-based authentication and its vulnerability to Shor’s Algorithm, the proposed system is long-term quantum secure. While Dilithium incurs increased computational and communication costs, our performance evaluations show that it provides security against quantum adversaries and replay attacks, thereby deeming it a worthwhile choice, especially in light of the swift advancements in ASIC technology. In an effort to be truly efficient, signature compression, parallel authentication verification, and an improved key management approach further enhance the scalability of the proposed scheme in the military Internet of Drones (IoD) network. The results substantiate the necessity of deploying full post-quantum authentication schemes to protect UAV networks. We intend to focus on developing energy-saving hardware and optimizations for real-world deployment in future work.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play a critical role in various fields, including logistics, agriculture, and rescue operations. Effective identity authentication and key agreement schemes are vital for UAV networks to combat threats. Current schemes often employ algorithms like elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), which are vulnerable to quantum attacks. To address this issue, we propose LIGKYX, a novel scheme combining the quantum-resistant Kyber algorithm with the hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) for enhanced security and efficiency. This scheme enables the mutual authentication between UAVs and ground stations and supports secure session key establishment protocols. Additionally, it facilitates robust authentication and key agreement among UAVs through control stations, addressing the critical challenge of quantum-resistant security in UAV networks. The proposed LIGKYX scheme operates based on the Kyber algorithm and elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) key exchange protocol, employing the HMAC and pre-computation techniques. Furthermore, a formal verification tool validated the security of LIGKYX under the Dolev–Yao threat model. Comparative analyses on security properties, communication overhead, and computational overhead indicate that LIGKYX not only matches or exceeds existing schemes but also uniquely counters quantum attacks effectively, ensuring the security of UAV communication networks with a lower time overhead for authentication and communication.