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IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing

Big Data Analytics-Envisioned Quantum-Safe Lattice-Based Three-Party Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol for Cloud IoT-Enabled Healthcare Applications

Prithwi Bagchi, Aakash Roy, Mohammad Wazid, Ashok Kumar Das, Bharat Bhargava, Youngho Park

Published Sep 3, 2025• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart healthcare plays a vital role in modern society, yet security and privacy challenges remain unavoidable. The authenticated key agreement (AKA) process, which serves as the foundation of secure communication, is widely recognized as a key solution to these challenges. However, many existing AKA methods in the literature either involve high communication and computational costs or fail to withstand quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) introduces a new class of cryptographic algorithms designed to resist future quantum computer threats. In this article, we present a quantum-secure, lattice-based three-party AKA scheme for smart IoT healthcare applications, leveraging the computationally complex Ring-Learning With Errors (Ring-LWE) problem. Our approach integrates secure big-data analytics with blockchain technology by utilizing authentication procedures for secure data aggregation before storing it in the blockchain. A comprehensive security evaluation including formal and informal analysis, demonstrates the scheme's strong resilience against both classical and quantum attacks. Additionally, experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme is well-suited for real-time smart healthcare applications.

DOI
10.1109/tdsc.2025.3605524

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Cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart healthcare plays a vital role in modern society, yet security and privacy challenges remain unavoidable. The authenticated key agreement (AKA) process, which serves as the foundation of secure communication, is widely recognized as a key solution to these challenges. However, many existing AKA methods in the literature either involve high communication and computational costs or fail to withstand quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) introduces a new class of cryptographic algorithms designed to resist future quantum computer threats. In this article, we present a quantum-secure, lattice-based three-party AKA scheme for smart IoT healthcare applications, leveraging the computationally complex Ring-Learning With Errors (Ring-LWE) problem. Our approach integrates secure big-data analytics with blockchain technology by utilizing authentication procedures for secure data aggregation before storing it in the blockchain. A comprehensive security evaluation including formal and informal analysis, demonstrates the scheme's strong resilience against both classical and quantum attacks. Additionally, experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme is well-suited for real-time smart healthcare applications.
In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained immense popularity in various aspects of work, learning, and daily life. Within the IoT realm, there is a growing concern regarding communication security issues between users and servers. However, addressing the communication security between servers is equally imperative, which has not received as much attention. To this end, we propose a certificateless anonymous authenticated key agreement (AKA) algorithm based on learning with errors (LWEs) and inhomogeneous small integer solution (ISIS) security assumptions. Our scheme provides strong resistance to quantum attacks and protects the privacy of communication servers. It also has constant communication costs and lower computational requirements than existing lattice-based anonymous AKA algorithms on the broadcast channel. Additionally, the proposed scheme eliminates the resource consumption of managing complex certificates and addresses the security risks associated with key escrow in the key generation center (KGC). Through security and performance analysis, we demonstrate that our approach can enhance the security of IoT-based healthcare systems while significantly improving communication efficiency. Our proposed scheme provides a promising solution to security issues related to server communication in IoT systems.
Rapid advancement in Internet of Things(IoT) changes the way people work and live deliberately. Medical IoT (MIoT) is a highly significant application in the world of IoT, allowing the user to communicate with smart medical devices with the help of a hospital gateway node. To establish a private communication channel, a three-party authenticated key agreement (AKA) technique using public-key cryptography is used. Currently, the AKA algorithms used in MIoT are based on classical cryptography such as ElGamal, RSA, ECC, etc. All of these techniques have become obsolete in the post-quantum environment as the Shor algorithm can solve these techniques on quantum computers. To overcome the problem stated above, a scheme called Lattice based Three party authenticated key agreement scheme in Medical IoT is proposed to accomplish security and efficiency in a post-quantum environment. Formal and informal security analysis is given to authenticate the protocol’s security. Also, the security analysis is conducted formally with the help of the Random Oracle Model (ROM) and ProVerif tool. The suggested scheme is compared to existing schemes in terms of security features, computing costs, and communication costs to evaluate the system’s performance. It validates that the suggested scheme exceeds the existing schemes.
Abstract The increasing interconnectedness of devices via the Internet of Things (IoT) highlights the growing importance of addressing IoT security issues. Authenticated Key Agreement (AKA) protocols ensure secure communication between IoT devices, users, and central servers. Preserving anonymity in AKA protocols is especially crucial given privacy issues and user preferences. The emergence of Shor's algorithm in 1994 and recent advancements in quantum computing have posed a threat to the security of classical AKA schemes relying on integer factorization, discrete logarithm, and other number theory problems. Consequently, researchers have turned their attention to developing quantum-resistant AKA schemes. In this context, Rana and Mishra introduced a lattice-based key agreement protocol under ring-LWE problem for IoT-enabled smart devices. However, a thorough security assessment uncovered vulnerabilities in their protocol, specifically susceptibility to replay and Key Compromise Impersonation (KCI) attacks. Furthermore, their approach reveals potential weaknesses in user impersonation if the user's identity is compromised.
The authenticated key agreement is one of the major security services that can be used to secure an Internet of Things (IoT) environment, where the devices collect the data and the data is then aggregated at the cloud server, and then a user needs to access the data stored at the server(s) securely. For this purpose, after a mutual authentication performed between a user and the accessed server, a session key needs to be established among them for secure communication. In this article, we design an efficient lattice-based authenticated key exchange protocol using ring-based version of learning with errors assumption for the IoT-enabled smart devices. The proposed protocol is basically a key exchange that uses the reconciliation mechanism. The detailed security analysis under the standard model has been performed along with the informal security analysis to show that the proposed protocol is robust against different attacks. We then simulate the proposed protocol under the NS-3 simulator to measure the network performance parameters like network throughput and latency. A comparative analysis shows that the proposed protocol has superior security, less computational cost, and comparable communication cost when compered these parameters with the other competing schemes.
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.
In the rapidly evolving domain of smart healthcare, the integration of Docker containers and Kubernetes with Internet of Things (IoT) edge cloud orchestration has significantly enhanced the performance, scalability, and modularity of healthcare applications. However, despite the efficiency benefits provided by microservices architecture, substantial security vulnerabilities persist, particularly in the face of the threat of quantum computing. Quantum algorithms, such as Shor’s and Grover’s, pose a significant risk to conventional encryption schemes, potentially compromising the integrity and confidentiality of healthcare data distributed across edge cloud environments. To address these critical concerns, we propose AQ-ResCon: an Adaptive Quantum-Resistant Lattice-Based Key Agreement Protocol designed for secure and resilient distributed container orchestration. AQ-ResCon leverages the hardness of the Learning With Errors (LWE) problem in lattice-based cryptography to provide a robust defence against quantum attacks. We further introduce the AQ-ResCon Scheduler Algorithm, which efficiently manages and executes healthcare workloads across decentralised IoT-edge-cloud nodes, ensuring secure data flow and orchestration. Extensive testbed experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance and security effectiveness of AQ-ResCon under realistic containerised healthcare scenarios. Results demonstrate that AQ-ResCon achieves up to 36% improvement in scheduling efficiency, 41% reduction in key compromise rates, and 28% lower latency compared to existing quantum-vulnerable orchestration protocols. Additionally, the AQ-ResCon protocol maintained consistent performance under simulated quantum attack conditions, validating its adaptability and resilience. These outcomes confirm that AQ-ResCon is a viable, secure, and future-proof solution for safeguarding microservices-based healthcare applications against evolving quantum threats in edge cloud environments.