Touch Healthcare (ZTH) in the 6G era envisions fully autonomous, intelligent, and secure healthcare systems enabled by IoT, quantum communication, and decentralized cloud infrastructures. As IoT devices proliferate in smart healthcare, they generate vast volumes of sensitive physiological data, requiring robust, scalable, and future-proof protection mechanisms. This paper presents a Quantum-Secured Hybrid Encryption Framework empowered by blockchain and Zero-Touch principles to ensure end-to-end confidentiality, integrity, and trust. The framework integrates a trusted authority for access control, quantum key controllers for cryptographic key generation, and secure data vaults for encrypted storage. Blockchain-enabled consensus nodes function as proxy service nodes, eliminating reliance on centralized service providers while securely managing cipher-text transactions in a distributed manner. The proposed system resists replay, side-channel, Sybil, and eavesdropping attacks and minimizes tampering risks through targeted quantum-based verification. Simulated results demonstrate a 93.33% accuracy rate, with discrepancies primarily caused by quantum device noise. By combining quantum encryption and blockchain within an AI-driven Zero-Touch architecture, this framework establishes a secure, decentralized, and resilient model for next-generation healthcare data sharing over 6G networks. Zero-Touch Healthcare (ZTH) in the 6G era envisions fully autonomous, intelligent, and secure healthcare systems enabled by IoT, quantum communication, and decentralized cloud infrastructures. As IoT devices proliferate in smart healthcare, they generate vast volumes of sensitive physiological data, requiring robust, scalable, and future-proof protection mechanisms. This paper presents a Quantum-Secured Hybrid Encryption Framework empowered by blockchain and Zero-Touch principles to ensure end-to-end confidentiality, integrity, and trust. The framework integrates a trusted authority for access control, quantum key controllers for cryptographic key generation, and secure data vaults for encrypted storage. Blockchain-enabled consensus nodes function as proxy service nodes, eliminating reliance on centralized service providers while securely managing cipher-text transactions in a distributed manner. The proposed system resists replay, side-channel, Sybil, and eavesdropping attacks and minimizes tampering risks through targeted quantum-based verification. Simulated results demonstrate a 93.33% accuracy rate, with discrepancies primarily caused by quantum device noise. By combining quantum encryption and blockchain within an AI-driven Zero-Touch architecture, this framework establishes a secure, decentralized, and resilient model for next-generation healthcare data sharing over 6G networks.
Touch Healthcare (ZTH) in the 6G era envisions fully autonomous, intelligent, and secure healthcare systems enabled by IoT, quantum communication, and decentralized cloud infrastructures. As IoT devices proliferate in smart healthcare, they generate vast volumes of sensitive physiological data, requiring robust, scalable, and future-proof protection mechanisms. This paper presents a Quantum-Secured Hybrid Encryption Framework empowered by blockchain and Zero-Touch principles to ensure end-to-end confidentiality, integrity, and trust. The framework integrates a trusted authority for access control, quantum key controllers for cryptographic key generation, and secure data vaults for encrypted storage. Blockchain-enabled consensus nodes function as proxy service nodes, eliminating reliance on centralized service providers while securely managing cipher-text transactions in a distributed manner. The proposed system resists replay, side-channel, Sybil, and eavesdropping attacks and minimizes tampering risks through targeted quantum-based verification. Simulated results demonstrate a 93.33% accuracy rate, with discrepancies primarily caused by quantum device noise. By combining quantum encryption and blockchain within an AI-driven Zero-Touch architecture, this framework establishes a secure, decentralized, and resilient model for next-generation healthcare data sharing over 6G networks. Zero-Touch Healthcare (ZTH) in the 6G era envisions fully autonomous, intelligent, and secure healthcare systems enabled by IoT, quantum communication, and decentralized cloud infrastructures. As IoT devices proliferate in smart healthcare, they generate vast volumes of sensitive physiological data, requiring robust, scalable, and future-proof protection mechanisms. This paper presents a Quantum-Secured Hybrid Encryption Framework empowered by blockchain and Zero-Touch principles to ensure end-to-end confidentiality, integrity, and trust. The framework integrates a trusted authority for access control, quantum key controllers for cryptographic key generation, and secure data vaults for encrypted storage. Blockchain-enabled consensus nodes function as proxy service nodes, eliminating reliance on centralized service providers while securely managing cipher-text transactions in a distributed manner. The proposed system resists replay, side-channel, Sybil, and eavesdropping attacks and minimizes tampering risks through targeted quantum-based verification. Simulated results demonstrate a 93.33% accuracy rate, with discrepancies primarily caused by quantum device noise. By combining quantum encryption and blockchain within an AI-driven Zero-Touch architecture, this framework establishes a secure, decentralized, and resilient model for next-generation healthcare data sharing over 6G networks.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is expanding swiftly, offering ease in everyday life. As the IoT systems produce enormous volumes of data, frequently encompassing private and confidential information, it is imperative to ensure their security. To ensure the security in IoT systems, we present a blockchain-enabled data encryption scheme utilizing quantum computing. This consensus mechanism eliminates the need for outside central service providers and encrypts data and accumulates converted cipher-text using consensus nodes acting as proxy service nodes. This approach alleviates the constraints associated with storing and sharing private encrypted information securely over a decentralized network. The suggested protocol possesses security attributes to counter replay attacks, side-channel attacks, Sybil attacks, and eavesdropping attacks, while mitigating tampering risks through targeted verification. Experimental results demonstrate an accuracy rate of 93.33%, with any discrepancies attributed to quantum device errors. The proposed protocol combines quantum encryption and blockchain-based security to create a scalable, decentralized, and resilient framework for securing IoT data sharing.
The rapid growth of consumer electronic devices connected through emerging 6G networks introduces critical challenges in ensuring data security, privacy, and trust across decentralized internet of consumer electronics IoCE infrastructures. Traditional encryption and access control models are insufficient for highly dynamic, software-defined, and zero-touch network (ZTN) environments typical of consumer electronics. In this work, we propose a blockchain-assisted quantum encryption protocol tailored for IoCE-cloud architectures within secure and standardized 6G systems. The scheme integrates quantum key generation via unitary transformations, lightweight symmetric encryption using the ASCON cipher, and tamper-proof authentication through blockchain. It enables autonomous, self-configuring, and self-protecting communication pathways between consumer devices and cloud infrastructure. Formal and informal security analyses demonstrate resilience against classical and quantum attacks, including replay, eavesdropping, and Sybil attacks. The protocol is validated using Qiskit simulations on IBM quantum hardware, achieving 91% fidelity. Performance evaluation confirms its efficiency and scalability, highlighting its potential as a secure-by-design framework for next-generation IoCE systems aligned with the Zero-Touch vision.
The emergence of sixth-generation (6G) networks and the rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices demand advanced security frameworks capable of operating in highly dynamic, autonomous, and zero-touch environments. Classical cryptographic solutions, relying on static policies and centralized trust models, fall short of addressing quantum-era threats and decentralized infrastructures. To overcome these limitations, we propose a quantum-enabled designated verifier signature (QDVS) scheme for smart IoT in 6G networks. The scheme leverages controlled quantum teleportation for secure state transfer, integrates identity-based verification for signer-verifier binding, and ensures tamper- proof trust management through blockchain assistance. By exploiting quantum principles such as superposition and entanglement, the scheme guarantees unforgeability, source hiding, and non-repudiation, while enabling scalable and autonomous operations within Zero-Touch IoT-cloud architectures. Security is validated through both informal analysis and formal verification using the Scyther tool, demonstrating resistance against classical and quantum attacks, including impersonation, replay, and forgery. Implementation on IBM’s Qiskit simulator achieves fidelity above 89.65% with minimal communication overhead, confirming the feasibility of the proposed protocol for real-world 6G IoT deployments. This work represents a secure-by-design signature framework, aligning with the long-term resilience goals of next-generation networks.
The convergence of 6G communication technologies and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has revolutionized modern healthcare by enabling real-time monitoring, intelligent diagnosis, and remote patient management. However, the proliferation of interconnected medical devices also exposes the ecosystem to severe security challenges, including identity forgery, data tampering, and emerging quantum-based attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a blockchain-assisted quantum signature framework for securing data exchange in 6G - enabled IoMT environments. The proposed framework leverages quantum digital signatures (QDS) based on entangled photon states to ensure message authenticity and non-repudiation, while blockchain technology provides decentralized trust management and immutable transaction logging. A Medical Authorization Center (MAC) coordinates identity registration, signature verification, and consensus-based access control among IoMT entities. Furthermore, smart contracts are utilized to automate trust evaluation and audit trails, thereby mitigating insider and replay attacks. Performance analysis using Qiskit simulations and IBM’s quantum backends demonstrates an average signature fidelity of 91% and a communication efficiency of 75.61%, validating the framework’s robustness for resource-constrained medical devices. By fusing quantum communication primitives with blockchain-enabled transparency, this work presents a scalable and tamper-resistant security solution for next-generation healthcare networks. The convergence of 6G communication technologies and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has revolutionized modern healthcare by enabling real-time monitoring, intelligent diagnosis, and remote patient management. However, the proliferation of interconnected medical devices also exposes the ecosystem to severe security challenges, including identity forgery, data tampering, and emerging quantum-based attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a blockchain-assisted quantum signature framework for securing data exchange in 6G-enabled IoMT environments. The proposed framework leverages quantum digital signatures (QDS) based on entangled photon states to ensure message authenticity and non-repudiation, while blockchain technology provides decentralized trust management and immutable transaction logging. A Medical Authorization Center (MAC) coordinates identity registration, signature verification, and consensus-based access control among IoMT entities. Furthermore, smart contracts are utilized to automate trust evaluation and audit trails, thereby mitigating insider and replay attacks. Performance analysis using Qiskit simulations and IBM’s quantum backends demonstrates an average signature fidelity of 91% and a communication efficiency of 75.61%, validating the framework’s robustness for resource-constrained medical devices. By fusing quantum communication primitives with blockchain-enabled transparency, this work presents a scalable and tamper-resistant security solution for next-generation healthcare networks.
The rapid adoption of cloud infrastructures has intensified concerns regarding data confidentiality, integrity, and trust management, particularly in the presence of emerging quantum computing threats. Classical cryptographic mechanisms, which underpin most existing cloud security architectures, are increasingly vulnerable to quantum attacks capable of compromising public-key encryption and key exchange protocols. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a hybrid security framework that integrates Quantum Cryptography with Blockchain technology to achieve robust, future-resistant data protection in cloud environments. The proposed framework leverages Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to enable provably secure key generation and exchange based on quantum mechanical principles, ensuring resistance against eavesdropping and computational attacks. Blockchain technology is employed to provide decentralized trust, immutable audit trails, and transparent access control across distributed cloud services. Smart contracts enforce fine-grained security policies, automate authentication, and ensure tamper-proof data access logging. The synergy between quantum cryptography and blockchain establishes a secure key lifecycle, resilient identity management, and verifiable data integrity within multi-tenant cloud infrastructures. Comprehensive security analysis demonstrates that the proposed approach effectively mitigates quantum-enabled attacks, insider threats, and single-point-of-failure vulnerabilities commonly found in traditional cloud security models. Experimental evaluation and comparative analysis highlight improvements in data integrity assurance, key management robustness, and trust transparency, with acceptable computational and communication overhead. The results indicate that integrating quantum cryptography with blockchain presents a scalable and future-proof security paradigm for next-generation cloud infrastructures.
Future 6G-enabled smart hospital infrastructures will support latency-critical medical operations such as robotic surgery, autonomous monitoring, and real-time clinical decision systems, which require communication mechanisms that ensure both ultra-low latency and long-term cryptographic security. Existing security solutions either rely on classical cryptographic protocols that are vulnerable to quantum attacks or deploy isolated post-quantum primitives without providing a unified framework for secure real-time medical command transmission. This research presents a latency-aware, multi-layered post-quantum security architecture for 6G-enabled smart hospital environments. The proposed framework establishes an end-to-end secure command transmission pipeline that integrates hardware-rooted device authentication, post-quantum key establishment, hybrid payload protection, dynamic access enforcement, and tamper-evident auditing within a coherent system design. In contrast to existing approaches that focus on individual security mechanisms, the architecture introduces a structured integration of Kyber-based key encapsulation and Dilithium digital signatures with hybrid AES-based encryption and legacy-compatible key transport, while Physical Unclonable Function authentication provides hardware-bound device identity verification. Zero Trust access control, metadata-driven anomaly detection, and blockchain-style audit logging provide continuous verification and traceability, while threshold cryptography distributes cryptographic authority to eliminate single points of compromise. The proposed architecture is evaluated using a discrete-event simulation framework representing adversarial conditions in realistic 6G medical communication scenarios, including replay attacks, payload manipulation, and key corruption attempts. Experimental results demonstrate improved security and operational efficiency, achieving a 48% reduction in detection latency, a 68% reduction in false-positive anomaly detection rate, and a 39% improvement in end-to-end round-trip latency compared to conventional RSA-AES-based architectures. These results demonstrate that the proposed framework provides a practical and scalable approach for achieving post-quantum secure and low-latency command transmission in next-generation 6G smart hospital systems.