Advances in quantum computing pose a fundamental threat to classical public-key cryptosystems, including RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC), which form the foundation for authentication and key exchange in the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. In response to these emerging threats, Korea launched the KpqC (Korea Post-Quantum Cryptography) project in 2021 to design, evaluate, and standardize domestic PQC algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic evaluation of the finalized Korean PQC algorithms (HAETAE, AIMer, SMAUG-T, NTRU+) within a production-grade TLS/X.509 stack, enabling direct comparison against NIST PQC and ECC baselines. To contextualize KpqC performance, we further compare against NIST-standardized PQC algorithms and classical ECC baselines. Our evaluation examines both static overhead (certificate size) and dynamic overhead (TLS 1.3 handshake latency) across computation-bound (localhost) and network-bound (LAN) scenarios, including embedded device and hybrid TLS configurations. Our results show that KpqC certificates are approximately 4.6–48.8× larger than ECC counterparts and generally exceed NIST PQC sizes. In computation-bound tests, both NIST PQC (ML-KEM) and KpqC hybrids exhibited similar handshake latency increases of approximately 8–9× relative to ECC. In network-bound tests, the difference between the two families was negligible, with relative overhead typically around 30–41%. These findings offer practical guidance for balancing security level, key size, packet size, and latency and support phased PQC migration strategies in real-world TLS deployments.
Advances in quantum computing pose a fundamental threat to classical public-key cryptosystems, including RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC), which form the foundation for authentication and key exchange in the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. In response to these emerging threats, Korea launched the KpqC (Korea Post-Quantum Cryptography) project in 2021 to design, evaluate, and standardize domestic PQC algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic evaluation of the finalized Korean PQC algorithms (HAETAE, AIMer, SMAUG-T, NTRU+) within a production-grade TLS/X.509 stack, enabling direct comparison against NIST PQC and ECC baselines. To contextualize KpqC performance, we further compare against NIST-standardized PQC algorithms and classical ECC baselines. Our evaluation examines both static overhead (certificate size) and dynamic overhead (TLS 1.3 handshake latency) across computation-bound (localhost) and network-bound (LAN) scenarios, including embedded device and hybrid TLS configurations. Our results show that KpqC certificates are approximately 4.6–48.8× larger than ECC counterparts and generally exceed NIST PQC sizes. In computation-bound tests, both NIST PQC (ML-KEM) and KpqC hybrids exhibited similar handshake latency increases of approximately 8–9× relative to ECC. In network-bound tests, the difference between the two families was negligible, with relative overhead typically around 30–41%. These findings offer practical guidance for balancing security level, key size, packet size, and latency and support phased PQC migration strategies in real-world TLS deployments.
The emergence of large-scale quantum computing presents an imminent threat to contemporary public-key cryptosystems, with quantum algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm capable of efficiently breaking RSA and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). This vulnerability has catalyzed accelerated standardization efforts for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and global security stakeholders. While theoretical security analysis of these quantum-resistant algorithms has advanced considerably, comprehensive real-world performance benchmarks spanning diverse computing environments—from high-performance cloud infrastructure to severely resource-constrained IoT devices—remain insufficient for informed deployment planning. This paper presents the most extensive cross-platform empirical evaluation to date of NIST-selected PQC algorithms, including CRYSTALS-Kyber and NTRU for key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs), alongside BIKE as a code-based alternative, and CRYSTALS-Dilithium and Falcon for digital signatures. Our systematic benchmarking framework measures computational latency, memory utilization, key sizes, and protocol overhead across multiple security levels (NIST Levels 1, 3, and 5) in three distinct hardware environments and various network conditions. Results demonstrate that contemporary server architectures can implement these algorithms with negligible performance impact (<5% additional latency), making immediate adoption feasible for cloud services. In contrast, resource-constrained devices experience more significant overhead, with computational demands varying by up to 12× between algorithms at equivalent security levels, highlighting the importance of algorithm selection for edge deployments. Beyond standalone algorithm performance, we analyze integration challenges within existing security protocols, revealing that naive implementation of PQC in TLS 1.3 can increase handshake size by up to 7× compared to classical approaches. To address this, we propose and evaluate three optimization strategies that reduce bandwidth requirements by 40–60% without compromising security guarantees. Our investigation further encompasses memory-constrained implementation techniques, side-channel resistance measures, and hybrid classical-quantum approaches for transitional deployments. Based on these comprehensive findings, we present a risk-based migration framework and algorithm selection guidelines tailored to specific use cases, including financial transactions, secure firmware updates, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, and IoT fleet management. This practical roadmap enables organizations to strategically prioritize systems for quantum-resistant upgrades based on data sensitivity, resource constraints, and technical feasibility. Our results conclusively demonstrate that PQC is deployment-ready for most applications, provided that implementations are carefully optimized for the specific performance characteristics and security requirements of target environments. We also identify several remaining research challenges for the community, including further optimization for ultra-constrained devices, standardization of hybrid schemes, and hardware acceleration opportunities.
As quantum computing advances, widely deployed public-key cryptosystems face a credible long-term risk, motivating a transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Building on NIST’s standardization, this paper evaluates the practical performance of CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium through both microbenchmarks and TLS 1.3 deployments, with the expectation that compute costs remain competitive while deployment overhead is dominated by larger handshake messages. At the algorithm level, we measure key generation, encapsulation/decapsulation, signing, and verification for reference and AVX2-optimized implementations using a consistent toolchain and runtime configuration, and compare them against classical baselines (RSA, ECDH, and ECDSA). Across tested parameter sets, AVX2 delivers multifold speedups and keeps operations in the sub-millisecond range, with Kyber and Dilithium execution times that are competitive with or better than security-aligned classical counterparts. At the protocol level, we integrate ML-KEM and ML-DSA into TLS 1.3 and extract handshake latency (ClientHello→ServerHello and ClientHello→END) and handshake message sizes from captured traces in a low-RTT setting. PQC handshakes incur only a modest latency increase at the 128-bit level relative to P-256, while at 192- and 256-bit security they complete substantially faster than P-384 and P-521 configurations. The main cost is bandwidth: server-to-client handshake traffic increases from a few kilobytes in classical TLS to roughly 8–15 kB under PQC. Overall, the results indicate that deployment challenges are driven less by computation than by larger handshake footprints, especially on bandwidth- or RTT-constrained links.
The rapid developments in quantum computing pose a critical threat to classical public-key cryptography, particularly RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which rely on mathematical problems solvable by Shor’s algorithm. In response, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has standardized quantum-resistant algorithms, including ML-KEM, ML-DSA, FALCON, and SPHINCS+, to prepare global infrastructure for a post-quantum future. This paper provides a unified comparative analysis of classical cryptography and NIST-standardized PQC algorithms, evaluating their security assumptions, efficiency, architectural characteristics, and resilience against quantum adversaries. A comprehensive literature review identifies gaps in existing studies, particularly concerning unified migration frameworks that combine theory, implementation requirements, certificate ecosystem changes, and organizational readiness. To address these gaps, the paper proposes a structured comparative framework and outlines practical migration strategies, including hybrid cryptographic deployment, protocol upgrades, and phased transition roadmaps. The findings highlight that while PQC introduces larger key and signature sizes, its quantum resistance and standardization maturity make it essential for long-term security. The study concludes that strategic migration planning, driven by hybrid adoption and ecosystem adjustments, is crucial for ensuring a secure and seamless transition to post-quantum cryptography
The prospect of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) undermines the public-key primitives that secure virtually every layer of modern communication networks, from subscriber authentication in cellular cores to transport-layer key exchange. Adversaries already following a harvest-now, decrypt-later (HNDL) strategy make this threat actionable today for any traffic whose confidentiality must outlast a decade. Following NIST’s finalisation of the first post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards, ML-KEM (FIPS 203), ML-DSA (FIPS 204), and SLH-DSA (FIPS 205) in August 2024, and the selection of HQC as a fourth key-encapsulation candidate in March 2025, research has shifted from algorithm design to network-level integration. This paper reports a PRISMA-2020-compliant systematic literature review of PQC migration in communication networks, structured around five research questions covering protocol and scenario coverage, quantitative performance impact, hybrid cryptography strategies, transition barriers, and open research gaps. Six databases (IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, SpringerLink, and MDPI) were searched (3229 records identified); after deduplication, title-keyword screening, full-text eligibility assessment, and a pre-specified quality appraisal (Q1–Q6, threshold ≥3/6) applied to 310 eligible studies, a final synthesis corpus of 141 studies (68 journal articles, 68 conference papers, 4 conference-derived book chapters, 1 workshop paper) was screened, quality-appraised, and synthesised narratively with supporting evidence tables. The review finds that transport-layer protocols (TLS 1.3, QUIC, DTLS 1.3) dominate the literature, that lattice-based ML-KEM/ML-DSA offer the most favourable latency–bandwidth–energy trade-off among standardised families, and that classical–PQC hybrid schemes are the de facto transition strategy across 5G/6G, IoT, VPN, and automotive scenarios, at the cost of 10–100× larger keys/signatures and 8–40% handshake latency overhead. Persistent barriers include constrained-device resource limits, immature hardware acceleration, incomplete IETF/3GPP standardisation, and public-key-infrastructure scaling. We propose a five-level PQC transition-readiness maturity model and identify large-scale field validation, PQC–QKD integration, and lightweight signature schemes as priority directions for future work.
Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has emerged as a critical research area for securing communications in the quantum era. Among the selected algorithms, lattice-based schemes have gained particular attention due to their strong security foundations and practical efficiency.This paper presents a comparative analysis of latticebased PQC algorithms from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standardization process and the Korean PQC (KpqC) competition. The evaluation considers security levels, key and ciphertext/signature sizes, and implementation performance. The results highlight fundamental trade-offs between security, efficiency, compactness, and implementation complexity, providing insights into the strengths and limitations of current latticebased algorithms. These findings offer practical guidance for assessing their suitability for deployment in real-world post-quantum systems.
The imminent threat of cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) to RSA and elliptic curve cryptography — combined with the 'harvest now, decrypt later' attack paradigm — necessitates an urgent enterprise PKI migration to post quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms. This paper presents a comprehensive hybrid PKI framework enabling phased, backward compatible migration from classical to post quantum certificate chains. The framework embeds dual signatures (ECDSA + CRYSTALS Dilithium3) within X.509v3 certificates following the emerging RFC 9480 composite certificate standard. We provide Algorithm 2 (HybridCertIssue) specifying the complete certificate generation and verification protocol, and a migration roadmap structured across five phases from 2021 to 2035+. Experimental evaluation on a 10,000 node enterprise PKI demonstrates: TLS handshake overhead of +4.6 KB, latency increase of +38ms (LAN p50), and Dilithium3 signing throughput of 800 ops/sec on FIPS 140 3 HSMs. Security proofs establish that the hybrid scheme is secure if either the classical or PQC scheme is unforgeable — requiring an adversary to simultaneously break both ECDSA and Dilithium3. The migration cost model scales O(n log n) for n node PKI hierarchies. A 30 organization survey quantifies migration readiness: only 41% have completed cryptographic asset inventory, representing the critical first blocker.