Distributed systems are widely used in modern environments such as cloud platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, smart grids, and blockchain-based systems. These platforms often require digital signatures to maintain trust between devices or users. When many signatures are shared at once, the size of the communication grows, and processing takes more time. This becomes a problem in applications where quick message verification is important. Classical digital signature schemes, such as Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), are not safe against quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography offers better protection, but it often increases communication size and computation cost. This paper introduces a quantum-resistant model that supports signature aggregation and constant-time verification. The method is based on lattice-based techniques, using structures similar to CRYSTALS-Dilithium. By combining several signatures into a single aggregated form, the model reduces the time needed for verification and the overall communication overhead. The design is suitable for real-time applications, offering strong accuracy and faster message handling. Simulation results show that the proposed method performs better than recent approaches in multiple areas. The model achieves a low authentication time, high verification accuracy, reduced message size, and improved throughput. These benefits help meet the needs of distributed systems where speed, accuracy, and security must work together. The architecture is designed to be flexible for use in real-world deployments. Future directions include support for multi-party signing, adaptive quantum-safe policies, and integration with quantum co-processors. This research supports the development of secure and efficient communication frameworks that remain effective even in the presence of future quantum threats.
Distributed systems are widely used in modern environments such as cloud platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, smart grids, and blockchain-based systems. These platforms often require digital signatures to maintain trust between devices or users. When many signatures are shared at once, the size of the communication grows, and processing takes more time. This becomes a problem in applications where quick message verification is important. Classical digital signature schemes, such as Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), are not safe against quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography offers better protection, but it often increases communication size and computation cost. This paper introduces a quantum-resistant model that supports signature aggregation and constant-time verification. The method is based on lattice-based techniques, using structures similar to CRYSTALS-Dilithium. By combining several signatures into a single aggregated form, the model reduces the time needed for verification and the overall communication overhead. The design is suitable for real-time applications, offering strong accuracy and faster message handling. Simulation results show that the proposed method performs better than recent approaches in multiple areas. The model achieves a low authentication time, high verification accuracy, reduced message size, and improved throughput. These benefits help meet the needs of distributed systems where speed, accuracy, and security must work together. The architecture is designed to be flexible for use in real-world deployments. Future directions include support for multi-party signing, adaptive quantum-safe policies, and integration with quantum co-processors. This research supports the development of secure and efficient communication frameworks that remain effective even in the presence of future quantum threats.
In the contemporary era, the global proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices exceeds 15 billion, serving functions from wearables to smart grid monitoring. These devices frequently manage sensitive data, underscoring the need for secure and reliable IoT networks leveraging blockchain technology. A key innovation of this study is an approach to mitigate vulnerabilities that quantum computing poses to blockchain-based IoT systems, which existing cryptographic methods cannot effectively address. Quantum computers could exploit these weaknesses to compromise key-pair generation and extract private keys from transaction signatures. To overcome this, the research introduces an optimized implementation of the post-quantum digital signature algorithm Dilithium-5, ensuring blockchain security and quantum readiness. These transaction signatures are designed for low-power, cost-effective microcontrollers, such as the ESP32, making the solution accessible for a wide range of IoT devices. In addition, the study includes a case study involving a post-quantum safe portable device for measuring blood oxygen levels and heart rate, illustrating the practical benefits and effectiveness of the proposed solution in enhancing IoT security against quantum threats. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach ensures quantum-resistant security while maintaining performance efficiency, making it suitable for real-world IoT applications.
The long-term security of public blockchains strictly depends on the hardness assumptions of the underlying digital signature schemes. In the current scenario, most deployed cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms rely on elliptic-curve cryptography, which is vulnerable to quantum attacks due to Shor's algorithm. Therefore, it is important to understand how post-quantum (PQ) digital signatures behave when integrated into real blockchain systems. This report presents a blockchain prototype that supports multiple quantum-secure signature algorithms, focusing on CRYSTALS-Dilithium, Falcon and Hawk as lattice-based schemes. This report also describes the design of the prototype and discusses the performance metrics, which include key generation, signing, verification times, key sizes and signature sizes. This report covers the problem, background, and experimental methodology, also providing a detailed comparison of quantum-secure signatures in a blockchain context and extending the analysis to schemes such as HAETAE.
the rapid advancement of quantum computing introduces substantial risks to classical cryptographic algorithms that rely on number-theoretic problems, such as the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman algorithm and elliptic curve cryptography. These cryptographic primitives are susceptible to polynomial-time quantum algorithms like those proposed by Shor and Grover, thereby endangering the security of contemporary digital infrastructures. In light of these emerging threats, the global cryptographic community is prioritizing the development and deployment of quantum-resistant cryptographic techniques. These include diverse algorithmic families such as those based on lattices, hash functions, error-correcting codes, and multivariate polynomials. Each approach exhibits distinct trade-offs in terms of computational performance, key length, signature size, and long-term resilience. This paper introduces a hybrid cryptographic framework optimized for specific application domains, particularly those with limited computational and energy resources. The proposed architecture strategically combines lattice-based encryption, hash-based digital signatures, and code-based key encapsulation mechanisms to form a unified model for secure data transmission. The architecture is implemented and evaluated across heterogeneous computing environments, including low-power embedded systems and Field-Programmable Gate Arrays. Experimental metrics such as execution latency, computational overhead, memory consumption, and energy efficiency are assessed and benchmarked against traditional single-algorithm deployments. The findings demonstrate that the hybrid approach maintains strong quantum resistance while significantly reducing performance penalties, making it suitable for mobile platforms, Internet of Things environments, and real-time communication systems. Future work should emphasize further fine-tuning for specific industrial domains, standardization of hybrid cryptographic protocols, and integration with artificial intelligence-based adaptive security layers to ensure sustainability in the approaching quantum era.
The rapid development of quantum computing presents a substantial threat to traditional cryptographic algorithms, particularly those relying on mathematical problems such as integer factorization and elliptic curve operations. As a response, the cryptographic community has accelerated the design of post-quantum cryptographic schemes that can withstand attacks from both classical and quantum computers. However, many of these new schemes exhibit inherent trade-offs between performance, key sizes, and implementation complexity. To address this, we propose a novel hybrid cryptographic framework tailored for secure and efficient data transmission in future quantum-aware environments. The proposed system combines three algorithmic paradigms: a lattice-based encryption method for fast and lightweight data protection, a hash-based signature mechanism for authenticity, and a code-based key exchange method to ensure session confidentiality. This layered integration is designed to capitalize on each algorithm’s strengths while mitigating individual limitations. The system is implemented using modular components in a testbed simulating real-world deployments, and its performance is benchmarked across multiple metrics including encryption latency, signature generation time, key sizes, and throughput. Comparative results indicate that the hybrid approach outperforms monolithic schemes in critical areas such as execution time and cryptographic strength under quantum adversary models. The findings support the practicality of using multiple post-quantum primitives in tandem to build robust communication systems. This research contributes a realistic implementation and evaluation of post-quantum security models and highlights key directions for future research and standardization efforts as the global transition to quantum-safe infrastructure begins.
ABSTRACT The rapid advancement of quantum computing presents a significant threat to classical cryptographic systems, particularly RSA, whose security is based on the hardness of integer factorization. Shor’s algorithm demonstrates that large RSA keys can be efficiently broken in a quantum environment, raising concerns about the long-term reliability of traditional digital signatures. To address this, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has emerged as a promising solution, with lattice-based schemes such as CRYSTALS-Dilithium3 gaining attention for their quantum resistance and efficiency. This study presents a comparative security and performance analysis of RSA and CRYSTALS-Dilithium3 digital signatures in the post-quantum era. The evaluation considers signature size, signing and verification speed, tamper detection capability, and resilience against classical and quantum attack models. Results highlight that RSA offers compact signature sizes but fails to provide integrity protection once subjected to simulated quantum attacks, while Dilithium3 ensures robust tamper detection, forward security, and cross-format verification across multiple document types. Despite larger signature sizes, Dilithium3 demonstrates superior verification speed and scalability, making it a viable candidate for post-quantum digital infrastructures. The findings emphasize the need for transitioning from classical to quantum-resistant cryptographic systems to ensure secure digital communication in the emerging quantum age. Keywords: Post-Quantum Cryptography, RSA, CRYSTALS-Dilithium3, Digital Signatures, Quantum Attacks, Tamper Detection, Performance Analysis
A lightweight, robust, and efficient security mechanism is necessary to combat quantum-generation threats across multiple domains, including healthcare, transportation, and industrial automation, in the Internet of Things (IoT). Post-quantum cryptography has emerged in response to the increasing vulnerability of traditional cryptographic methods, such as RSA and ECC, to quantum attacks. Taking advantage of the hardness of Short Integer Solutions (SIS) and Learning with Errors (LWE), we propose a lattice-based signature scheme for IoT applications. A computationally efficient IoT device model that maintains authenticated, integrity, and anonymity is proposed. The scheme has the advantage of being faster and more efficient than existing key size schemes such as IBS, CLS, and FALCON, according to a detailed security assessment. The proposed scheme maintains practical deployment ability while reducing post-quantum security in IoT ecosystems.