Many post-quantum cryptographic schemes have been proposed in the literature, offering resistance to attacks launched by quantum computers. Due to its promising security properties, NTRU was selected as a candidate in the final round of the NIST competition on post-quantum cryptography. However, this method poses challenges for constrained devices due to its high computation and memory requirements. Motivated by the need to extend the lifetime of resource-constrained IoT devices while still being able to withstand a quantum attacker, in this chapter we propose a new NTRU-based collaborative encryption scheme for such devices. Our scheme preserves the confidentiality of sensitive information exchanged among constrained IoT devices deployed in an edge computing architecture. Our approach distributes the workload of the cryptographic operations among the edge nodes and IoT devices within the same network. This collaborative approach enables IoT devices to significantly reduce their computational cost while maintaining data confidentiality. Additionally, the proposed distribution of computing allows scalability and a better sustainability of IoT environments. Finally, we demonstrate through empirical evaluation and extensive simulation that our scheme is secure, improves energy saving and resource utilization in IoT networks, and is more efficient than the traditional centralized approach.
Many post-quantum cryptographic schemes have been proposed in the literature, offering resistance to attacks launched by quantum computers. Due to its promising security properties, NTRU was selected as a candidate in the final round of the NIST competition on post-quantum cryptography. However, this method poses challenges for constrained devices due to its high computation and memory requirements. Motivated by the need to extend the lifetime of resource-constrained IoT devices while still being able to withstand a quantum attacker, in this chapter we propose a new NTRU-based collaborative encryption scheme for such devices. Our scheme preserves the confidentiality of sensitive information exchanged among constrained IoT devices deployed in an edge computing architecture. Our approach distributes the workload of the cryptographic operations among the edge nodes and IoT devices within the same network. This collaborative approach enables IoT devices to significantly reduce their computational cost while maintaining data confidentiality. Additionally, the proposed distribution of computing allows scalability and a better sustainability of IoT environments. Finally, we demonstrate through empirical evaluation and extensive simulation that our scheme is secure, improves energy saving and resource utilization in IoT networks, and is more efficient than the traditional centralized approach.
In this letter, a lightweight post-quantum cryptographic protocol specifically designed for resource-constrained IoT edge devices is presented, addressing the vulnerability of conventional encryption to quantum computing attacks. The proposed protocol employs a modified NTRU-based algorithm with reduced parameter sizes, achieving switch production in 12.4 ms, encryption in 8.2 ms, and total energy consumption of 4.2 mJ per exchange - 63% lower than standard post-quantum protocols. Experimental results demonstrate resistance against quantum attacks exceeding 1018 processes while maintaining response times under 50 ms, with a compression mechanism reducing message size to 186 bytes. The protocol achieves an optimal balance between post-quantum security and operational efficiency, offering a practical solution for narrow-bandwidth, battery-limited IoT environments.
In this work, a lightweight post-quantum cryptographic protocol specifically designed for resource-constrained IoT edge devices is presented, addressing the vulnerability of conventional encryption to quantum computing attacks. The proposed protocol employs a modified NTRU-based algorithm with reduced parameter sizes, achieving switch production in 12.4 ms, encryption in 8.2 ms, and total energy consumption of 4.2 mJ per exchange - 63% lower than standard post-quantum protocols. Experimental results demonstrate resistance against quantum attacks exceeding 1018 processes while maintaining response times under 50 ms, with a compression mechanism reducing message size to 186 bytes. The protocol achieves an optimal balance between post-quantum security and operational efficiency, offering a practical solution for narrow-bandwidth, battery-limited IoT environments.
The Internet of Things (IoT) plays a significant role in shaping different aspects of our lives. IoT devices have become increasingly important due to their ability to connect, collect, and analyze data, automate processes, improve safety and efficiency, and deliver personalized experiences. However, the advancement in quantum computer development poses a significant threat to resource-constrained IoT devices. This new generation of computers can break the classic public-key cryptographic schemes and digital signatures implemented in these IoT devices. While protecting IoT devices from quantum computer attacks poses many challenges, researchers are continuously making significant progress in developing lightweight post-quantum cryptographic algorithms for efficient key exchange mechanisms and digital signature algorithms tailored to IoT devices to overcome this issue. This paper proposes Q-SECURE, a post-Quantum resistant Security Enhancing Cryptography for Unified Resource-constrained device Encryption. A novel scheme that enables any IoT system to leverage the assistance of other devices in the network to gain the capability to generate any proposed post-quantum cryptographic key of a given size using distributed and parallel computing.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are going to be the primary data source in smart cities, often generating and communicating critical, sensitive, and private data that face threats of confidentiality breaches due to the rise of quantum computers. Even though NIST has approved post-quantum cryptography (PQC) schemes that promise to protect from quantum computer threats, these schemes can not be implemented efficiently on IoT devices, which often have computational and memory constraints. Hence, due to the substantial key size requirements and computationally intensive nature of PQC schemes, their direct deployment on IoT devices within smart city architecture is impeded by inherent computational and storage limitations. Consequently, it is imperative to devise PQC-based, resource-efficient authentication protocols tailored to IoT devices operating within smart cities. In this paper, we propose an offloading scheme that uses PQ Edge Server (PQES) for the network that performs PQC-related computation and memory operations for IoT devices in the network. The suggested technique transfers all storage and processing responsibilities from IoT devices in a network to ensure their normal operation and performance without any compromise. PQES generates a distinct PQ key pair for every network device and oversees a separate stream for each device. Therefore, IoT devices in the network may function without cryptographic processes, improving their efficiency by removing the need for conventional cryptography. Our results show that the proposed scheme reduces RAM usage to 1.05 KB and CPU usage to 1.75%, with maximum CPU context switches of 92.8. The proposed scheme uses TCP, a transport layer protocol, which is applicable to lightweight end devices without application-level protocols like HTTP or MQTT. When benchmarked on a Raspberry Pi, the PQES can handle 1000 concurrent connections and use a maximum of 73.5% of RAM. In comparison, previous research used at least 5.1 MB of RAM for one concurrent connection and may use up to 552.6 MB of RAM for 1000 concurrent connections. The maximum CPU usage for our method was 1.75%, whereas the previous proposal had a utilization of 67.1%. The greatest CPU context switches for our system were 92.8, far lower than the 3449 observed for the usual approach. Hence, our proposed scheme reduces the computational, memory, and network load for IoT devices by manifolds and increases device performance while providing PQC security.
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.