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IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics

Lightweight Post-Quantum Secure Communication Protocol for IoT Devices Using Code-Based Cryptography

Salahaldeen Duraibi, Abdullah Mujawib Alashjaee

Published Sep 18, 2025• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more active, a large amount of information, including personal data, is being transmitted through IoT devices. To protect this information, it is important for devices to communicate using mutual encryption. Due to the performance limitations inherent in IoT devices, lightweight security protocols are required. Currently, most cryptographic techniques used in security protocols are based on RSA and ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography). However, if high-performance quantum computers are developed and Shor’s algorithm is utilized, the foundational security assumptions of RSA and ECC can be easily broken, rendering them unusable. Therefore, this paper proposes a security protocol that is resilient to the computational capabilities of quantum computers. It employs ROLLO, a code-based cryptographic algorithm that is currently under consideration in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) post-quantum cryptography standardization competition. Additionally, to facilitate mutual communication between IoT devices, computationally efficient operations such as hashing and XOR are utilized. Finally, the proposed protocol is compared and analyzed in terms of performance and security against existing protocols.

DOI
10.1109/tce.2025.3611586

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As the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more active, a large amount of information, including personal data, is being transmitted through IoT devices. To protect this information, it is important for devices to communicate using mutual encryption. Due to the performance limitations inherent in IoT devices, lightweight security protocols are required. Currently, most cryptographic techniques used in security protocols are based on RSA and ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography). However, if high-performance quantum computers are developed and Shor’s algorithm is utilized, the foundational security assumptions of RSA and ECC can be easily broken, rendering them unusable. Therefore, this paper proposes a security protocol that is resilient to the computational capabilities of quantum computers. It employs ROLLO, a code-based cryptographic algorithm that is currently under consideration in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) post-quantum cryptography standardization competition. Additionally, to facilitate mutual communication between IoT devices, computationally efficient operations such as hashing and XOR are utilized. Finally, the proposed protocol is compared and analyzed in terms of performance and security against existing protocols.
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.
This massive rate of expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought about an immediate demand of safer and efficient communication methods with the capacity to endure upcoming cyber threats of the quantum age. Conventional cryptographic keys like RSA and ECC are getting more susceptible to quantum attacks and thus quantum-proof modules should be developed. This study introduces a Quantum-Resilient Communication Protocol, a lightweight cryptography-authentication post-quantum cryptography protocol, an integration of lattice and AES-GCM encryption with HMAC-based authentication to enable more resource-constrained IoT devices to be amely secured. MATLAB and NS-3 were used to simulate the proposed protocol and the performance of the proposed protocol was compared to a traditional ECC-based IoT protocol. The findings indicated that QRCP had improvement in the latency, throughput and energy savings over 40 percent and it was found that QRCP resisted quantum attack of Shor and Grover. The results justify the practicality of integrating the post-quantum cryptographic exceptors in the IoT network and provide a scalable, energy-saving, and future-enabling paradigm of the secure communication in the quantum era of computational computing.
Cryptographic algorithms are crucial for secure communication in the Internet of Things (IoT). Quantum computers threaten public key cryptography algorithms like RSA (Rivest, Shamir, Adleman) and Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange schemes, which are widely in use today. As cryptographic algorithms are the foundation of secure internet communication, the development of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is essential to protect transactions over the internet. However, solutions like Quantum Key Distribution require heavy infrastructure. So, it is not feasible for the Internet of Things with fewer resources in computing power and form factor. Post-Quantum Cryptography is helpful on these devices. But, it needs further developments and improvements. This paper analyzes cryptography algorithms and protocols of IoT with different categories. Integrated PQC of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) third level finalists on Raspberry Pi 4 (RPI4) board with Linux operating system. The performance of Post-Quantum Cryptography schemes for IoT has been evaluated. Finally, a Post-Quantum Cryptography scheme has been suggested for the Internet of Things based on the performance analysis.
The growth of quantum computing reveals a series of significant threats to cryptographic systems known today, such as RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman, which are extremely important for Internet security, but are threatened by the increase in possible quantum attacks. The area of public and private key cryptography is vast. Therefore, this article addresses post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms and the challenges of implementing them in Internet of Things (IoT) devices, given the difficulty of application due to restricted resources, such as RAM and clock speed . To this end, we will discuss the need for standardization of algorithms considering low-resource IoT devices, prioritizing RAM over ROM, meeting the needs of low-memory devices, which are lighter. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has validated four cryptographic systems that are secure against quantum attacks. We analyze the implications of these systems on the infrastructure of current networks and will compare in detail these algorithms and their respective strengths, weaknesses, and trade-offs. We evaluate the feasibility of post-quantum encryption (PQC) algorithms in resource-constrained IoT devices using the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller. Three cryptographic schemes were implemented and compared.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses significant threats to classical cryptographic methods, such as Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which currently secure Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud communications. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), particularly lattice-based schemes, has emerged as a promising alternative. CRYSTALS-Kyber, standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as ML-KEM, has shown efficiency and practicality for constrained IoT devices. Most existing research has focused on PQC within the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. Consequently, a critical gap exists in understanding PQC’s performance in lightweight IoT protocols. These are Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), particularly under adverse network conditions. To address this gap, this paper provides a systematic review of the literature on the network resilience and performance of CRYSTALS-Kyber when integrated into these protocols operating over lossy and high-latency networks. Additional challenges include non-standardized integration, resource limitations, and side-channel vulnerabilities. This review provides a structured synthesis of current knowledge, highlights unresolved trade-offs between security and efficiency, and outlines future research directions, including protocol-level optimization, lightweight signature schemes, and resilience testing of PQC-secured IoT protocols under realistic conditions.
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has heightened concerns regarding their security and privacy. Conventional cryptographic methods underpinning IoT security are increasingly threatened by the emergence of quantum computing, which promises to break widely used encryption algorithms such as RSA and ECC. This paper explores post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms tailored to the resource-constrained nature of IoT environments. It analyzes lattice-based, hash-based, code-based, and multivariate polynomial cryptographic schemes as promising candidates for securing IoT communications against quantum attacks. The paper further discusses implementation challenges, performance considerations, and potential pathways for integrating PQC within existing IoT architectures. Empirical data on computational efficiency and security strength are also presented to guide future deployment.