Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing

Post-Quantum Authentication and Communication Security for Drone Networks

Parya Derakhshan Roodsari, Siavash Bayat-Sarmadi, Hatameh Mosanaei-Boorani

Published Nov 25, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Modern societies increasingly rely on interconnected devices and individuals for information exchange and monitoring. In this manner, drones, as flying smart nodes in the wireless network ecosystem, facilitate diverse applications, such as industrial, civilian, and disaster response operations. However, the widespread adoption of drone networks introduces significant challenges regarding interoperability, privacy, and security. Advances in quantum computing exacerbate these issues by rendering classical cryptographic measures inadequate, necessitating the adoption of quantum-safe approaches. Existing solutions fail to address all potential threats or lack post-quantum security. This work sets out to propose a robust lattice-based authentication and communication protocol for drone networks, addressing these challenges. The protocol integrates dynamic credentials, timestamps, multi-factor authentication, and context information to enhance security. The scheme's security is analyzed using the DY and BPR models and formally verified via the AVISPA tool. Performance evaluations and comparisons with existing solutions demonstrate the protocol's functionality, showcasing a reasonable trade-off between security and performance. By leveraging modern cryptographic techniques, the proposed scheme ensures reliable and robust drone operations, effectively mitigating various attacks beyond session establishment while safeguarding privacy, and supporting dynamic network events.

DOI
10.1109/tdsc.2025.3636937

Related papers

Research on Drone Network Security Issues under Quantum Attack Threats

Tao Xia, Menglin Wang, Jun He +3 more

The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional cryptographic methods. Algorithms such as Shor’s and Grover’s have substantially weakened the security of symmetric and asymmetric encryption, exposing critical vulnerabilities in drone networks, particularly in identity authentication and key exchange. This paper examines the impact of quantum computing on drone network security, introduces an enhanced Dolev-Yao model to address quantum threats, and explores security challenges in both centralized and distributed drone networks. Using the ProVerif tool, this study evaluates existing drone security protocols under quantum attack scenarios. The results reveal that current protocols are inadequate against quantum threats, underscoring the urgent need for post-quantum cryptographic solutions to ensure the security of drone networks.

International Conference on Communication Technology and Information Technology (ICCTIT)•Dec 27, 2024•0 citations

Quantum-Safe Secure and Authorized Communication Protocol for Internet of Drones

Dheerendra Mishra, Mrityunjay Singh, Purva Rewal +4 more

Remotely-Controlled Aerial Vehicles (RCAV), popularly known as drones, have gained wide popularity in several applications from military to civilian due to the usage of sensors, actuators, and processors with wireless connectivity for data collection and processing. However, data security and authentication are still challenging as sensitive data is collected and shared in RCAV using an open channel, i.e., the Internet. The existing security of Internet-of-Drones (IoD) communication mainly depends on the hardness of discrete logarithms and factorization problems. However, due to Shor's algorithm, both authorized and secure transmissions are challenging in the presence of highly scalable quantum computers. To mitigate the aforementioned issues and challenges, in this article, we propose an authorized and secure communication scheme for IoD based on Ring Learning With Error (RLWE) problem on lattices, which have the potential to sustain low computation and quantum attacks. The proposed scheme supports mutual authentication and has an efficient session establishment. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme has superior performance as compared to the existing state-of-the-art solutions on benchmark data sets using various evaluation metrics.

IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology•Jul 6, 2023•65 citations

Decentralized Post-Quantum Authentication Protocol for Drone Communication Networks

Edoukou Berenger Ayebie, Elie Noumon Allini, Karam Bou‐Chaaya +1 more

This paper introduces a novel post-quantum mutual authentication scheme for drones, leveraging Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and cryptographic accumulators. By integrating PUFs, the scheme effectively mitigates drone cloning risks, while lattice-based cryptography ensures resilience against quantum computing attacks. The proposed approach enables secure, direct mutual authentication between drones without intermediaries. Cryptographic accumulators compress the entire drone identity database into a single element, significantly reducing storage demands on individual drones. The proposed scheme achieves superior communication efficiency compared to existing PUF-based post-quantum protocols for drones. Formal security verification using ProVerif confirms the robustness of the proposed scheme.

IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA)•Oct 19, 2025•0 citations

Quantum Resistant Lattice-Based Access Control Scheme for UAV-Assisted Internet-of-Drones Applications

Basudeb Bera, Ashok Kumar Das, Biplab Sikdar

The proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks and their numerous benefits in critical scenarios, UAV become crucial for Internet of Drones (IoD) operations. However, due to their communication methods, such as the micro-air-vehicle communication (MAVlink) protocol, wireless connections, and potentially insecure Internet channels, UAV networks are highly vulnerable to potentially lethal attacks. To overcome such issues, public key cryptographic techniques relying on integer factorization problem (IFP) and discrete logarithm problems (DLP) have been used form decades. However, with the significant advancements in quantum computing and adaptation of Shor's algorithm such cryptographic techniques based on IFP and DLP become insecure today and vulnerable to quantum attacks, which demand new ways of thinking about security. In this paper, we propose a quantum-secure access control protocol for UAV-based IoD applications, and its primary focus is on preserving user anonymity. A comprehensive security analysis validates the accuracy, security, and resilience against various active and passive attacks in both classical and quantum scenarios. A thorough formal security verification using the Scyther automated software validation tool to showcases the robustness of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, a real-time testbed experiment on Raspberry Pi 4 devices to assess the computational overhead of various cryptographic primitives demonstrates its practicality. Lastly, a detailed comparative performance evaluation, including authentication accuracy, performance under unknown attacks with existing related schemes illustrates its scalability and efficiency in real-world applications.

IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing•Oct 17, 2025•2 citations

AQCSA: Anti-Quantum Cross-Server Authentication Protocol for the Industrial Internet of Drones

Tuan‐Vinh Le

With the advent of Industry 5.0, humans will again take center stage in decision-making processes, fully supported by artificial intelligence (AI). Drone technology has been adopted in the industry to permit efficient monitoring, detection, and avoidance of hazardous regions during industrial processes. It gives rise to a network architecture, namely industrial internet of drones (IIoD), that is controlled and managed by human expertise. Collaborative IIoD services are conducted by two or more parties in different domains, e.g., mining, construction, etc. Since the communications are carried out via public network channels, privacy and security issues, especially the risks of quantum computing, are of utmost importance. Existing cryptographic approaches encounter several disadvantages, e.g., security vulnerabilities, poor usability, etc. Moreover, no user authentication mechanisms in the literature could provide a countermeasure to quantum attacks for the above communication. Based on lattice-based cryptography (LBC), this paper proposes an anti-quantum cross-server authentication (AQCSA) protocol for securing cross-domain communication of the collaborative services. Our work is designed with a multi-factor authentication mechanism to protect cross-server user-to-user (CS-U2U) and cross-server user-to-drone (CS-U2D) communications. We conduct some practical implementations and experiments to evaluate the security and efficiency of the AQCSA. It is proven that the protocol can withstand various attacks while achieving a reasonable implementation cost in CS-IIoD environments.

IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology•Dec 4, 2025•0 citations

A Quantum-Secure Authentication Protocol For UAV-GS Communications

Xin Ai, Kun Li, Shanshan Tu

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.

International Conference on Communication and Network Security (ICCNS)•Dec 19, 2025•0 citations
Modern societies increasingly rely on interconnected devices and individuals for information exchange and monitoring. In this manner, drones, as flying smart nodes in the wireless network ecosystem, facilitate diverse applications, such as industrial, civilian, and disaster response operations. However, the widespread adoption of drone networks introduces significant challenges regarding interoperability, privacy, and security. Advances in quantum computing exacerbate these issues by rendering classical cryptographic measures inadequate, necessitating the adoption of quantum-safe approaches. Existing solutions fail to address all potential threats or lack post-quantum security. This work sets out to propose a robust lattice-based authentication and communication protocol for drone networks, addressing these challenges. The protocol integrates dynamic credentials, timestamps, multi-factor authentication, and context information to enhance security. The scheme's security is analyzed using the DY and BPR models and formally verified via the AVISPA tool. Performance evaluations and comparisons with existing solutions demonstrate the protocol's functionality, showcasing a reasonable trade-off between security and performance. By leveraging modern cryptographic techniques, the proposed scheme ensures reliable and robust drone operations, effectively mitigating various attacks beyond session establishment while safeguarding privacy, and supporting dynamic network events.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional cryptographic methods. Algorithms such as Shor’s and Grover’s have substantially weakened the security of symmetric and asymmetric encryption, exposing critical vulnerabilities in drone networks, particularly in identity authentication and key exchange. This paper examines the impact of quantum computing on drone network security, introduces an enhanced Dolev-Yao model to address quantum threats, and explores security challenges in both centralized and distributed drone networks. Using the ProVerif tool, this study evaluates existing drone security protocols under quantum attack scenarios. The results reveal that current protocols are inadequate against quantum threats, underscoring the urgent need for post-quantum cryptographic solutions to ensure the security of drone networks.
Remotely-Controlled Aerial Vehicles (RCAV), popularly known as drones, have gained wide popularity in several applications from military to civilian due to the usage of sensors, actuators, and processors with wireless connectivity for data collection and processing. However, data security and authentication are still challenging as sensitive data is collected and shared in RCAV using an open channel, i.e., the Internet. The existing security of Internet-of-Drones (IoD) communication mainly depends on the hardness of discrete logarithms and factorization problems. However, due to Shor's algorithm, both authorized and secure transmissions are challenging in the presence of highly scalable quantum computers. To mitigate the aforementioned issues and challenges, in this article, we propose an authorized and secure communication scheme for IoD based on Ring Learning With Error (RLWE) problem on lattices, which have the potential to sustain low computation and quantum attacks. The proposed scheme supports mutual authentication and has an efficient session establishment. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme has superior performance as compared to the existing state-of-the-art solutions on benchmark data sets using various evaluation metrics.
This paper introduces a novel post-quantum mutual authentication scheme for drones, leveraging Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and cryptographic accumulators. By integrating PUFs, the scheme effectively mitigates drone cloning risks, while lattice-based cryptography ensures resilience against quantum computing attacks. The proposed approach enables secure, direct mutual authentication between drones without intermediaries. Cryptographic accumulators compress the entire drone identity database into a single element, significantly reducing storage demands on individual drones. The proposed scheme achieves superior communication efficiency compared to existing PUF-based post-quantum protocols for drones. Formal security verification using ProVerif confirms the robustness of the proposed scheme.
The proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks and their numerous benefits in critical scenarios, UAV become crucial for Internet of Drones (IoD) operations. However, due to their communication methods, such as the micro-air-vehicle communication (MAVlink) protocol, wireless connections, and potentially insecure Internet channels, UAV networks are highly vulnerable to potentially lethal attacks. To overcome such issues, public key cryptographic techniques relying on integer factorization problem (IFP) and discrete logarithm problems (DLP) have been used form decades. However, with the significant advancements in quantum computing and adaptation of Shor's algorithm such cryptographic techniques based on IFP and DLP become insecure today and vulnerable to quantum attacks, which demand new ways of thinking about security. In this paper, we propose a quantum-secure access control protocol for UAV-based IoD applications, and its primary focus is on preserving user anonymity. A comprehensive security analysis validates the accuracy, security, and resilience against various active and passive attacks in both classical and quantum scenarios. A thorough formal security verification using the Scyther automated software validation tool to showcases the robustness of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, a real-time testbed experiment on Raspberry Pi 4 devices to assess the computational overhead of various cryptographic primitives demonstrates its practicality. Lastly, a detailed comparative performance evaluation, including authentication accuracy, performance under unknown attacks with existing related schemes illustrates its scalability and efficiency in real-world applications.
With the advent of Industry 5.0, humans will again take center stage in decision-making processes, fully supported by artificial intelligence (AI). Drone technology has been adopted in the industry to permit efficient monitoring, detection, and avoidance of hazardous regions during industrial processes. It gives rise to a network architecture, namely industrial internet of drones (IIoD), that is controlled and managed by human expertise. Collaborative IIoD services are conducted by two or more parties in different domains, e.g., mining, construction, etc. Since the communications are carried out via public network channels, privacy and security issues, especially the risks of quantum computing, are of utmost importance. Existing cryptographic approaches encounter several disadvantages, e.g., security vulnerabilities, poor usability, etc. Moreover, no user authentication mechanisms in the literature could provide a countermeasure to quantum attacks for the above communication. Based on lattice-based cryptography (LBC), this paper proposes an anti-quantum cross-server authentication (AQCSA) protocol for securing cross-domain communication of the collaborative services. Our work is designed with a multi-factor authentication mechanism to protect cross-server user-to-user (CS-U2U) and cross-server user-to-drone (CS-U2D) communications. We conduct some practical implementations and experiments to evaluate the security and efficiency of the AQCSA. It is proven that the protocol can withstand various attacks while achieving a reasonable implementation cost in CS-IIoD environments.
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.