Satellite communication networks play a critical role in providing connectivity to remote regions and areas with limited infrastructure. However, their inherently open nature and physical exposure make them particularly susceptible to security threats, including replay, impersonation, and man-in- the-middle attacks. The emergence of quantum computing further undermines the robustness of conventional cryptographic schemes that rely on number-theoretic assumptions. To mitigate these challenges, this article proposesHBQS, a lightweight post-quantum authentication framework designed for satellite platforms with limited resources.HBQSintegrates Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) with hash-based cryptography, leveraging SPHINCS+ digital signatures and SHA-3 hashing to provide secure mutual authentication and session key establishment. The protocolHBQSwas implemented and evaluated on embedded hardware platforms, including Raspberry Pi 4.0, PYNQ-Z2 FPGA, and a Dell ground control station. The experimental results demonstrate thatHBQSachieves mutual authentication in 0.88 ms, offering an approximately 67% reduction in execution time compared to representative baselines from the prior literature. Entropy analysis confirms that the proposed protocol maintains a high entropy across critical components, withHBQSachieving a signature entropy of 164.63 bits and PUF response entropy of 172.58 bits, indicating strong resistance to statistical and modeling attacks. A formal security analysis conducted within the Random Oracle Model demonstrates semantic security against both classical and quantum adversaries. The protocolHBQSshows a significant improvement over existing methods, achieving approximately 67% reduction in computational execution time, approximately 11.5% faster user-side handshake time, approximately 0.6% improvement on the satellite side and full security coverage across all evaluated security features with only a 21.4% increase in static memory usage as the trade-off. These findings positionHBQSas an efficient, secure, and scalable authentication solution for next-generation satellite communication systems operating in the post-quantum era.
Satellite communication networks play a critical role in providing connectivity to remote regions and areas with limited infrastructure. However, their inherently open nature and physical exposure make them particularly susceptible to security threats, including replay, impersonation, and man-in- the-middle attacks. The emergence of quantum computing further undermines the robustness of conventional cryptographic schemes that rely on number-theoretic assumptions. To mitigate these challenges, this article proposesHBQS, a lightweight post-quantum authentication framework designed for satellite platforms with limited resources.HBQSintegrates Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) with hash-based cryptography, leveraging SPHINCS+ digital signatures and SHA-3 hashing to provide secure mutual authentication and session key establishment. The protocolHBQSwas implemented and evaluated on embedded hardware platforms, including Raspberry Pi 4.0, PYNQ-Z2 FPGA, and a Dell ground control station. The experimental results demonstrate thatHBQSachieves mutual authentication in 0.88 ms, offering an approximately 67% reduction in execution time compared to representative baselines from the prior literature. Entropy analysis confirms that the proposed protocol maintains a high entropy across critical components, withHBQSachieving a signature entropy of 164.63 bits and PUF response entropy of 172.58 bits, indicating strong resistance to statistical and modeling attacks. A formal security analysis conducted within the Random Oracle Model demonstrates semantic security against both classical and quantum adversaries. The protocolHBQSshows a significant improvement over existing methods, achieving approximately 67% reduction in computational execution time, approximately 11.5% faster user-side handshake time, approximately 0.6% improvement on the satellite side and full security coverage across all evaluated security features with only a 21.4% increase in static memory usage as the trade-off. These findings positionHBQSas an efficient, secure, and scalable authentication solution for next-generation satellite communication systems operating in the post-quantum era.
In this paper, a generic post-quantum authentication protocol is constructed for quantum-resistant satellite communication. This scheme was proposed to address emerging authentication needs in post-quantum satellite communication systems consistent with evolving standards such as Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In the proposed authentication, it is aimed to obtain additional security features and low communication complexity based on simple operations and post-quantum algorithms. The mutual authentication is achieved by using Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF), Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC), and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) primitives. The security analysis shows that the proposed authentication provides additional security properties and resistance to replay and man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. The main difference between the proposed protocol and PQC-based authentication for satellites in the literature is that it does not require complex operations and provides anonymity, integrity, and legitimacy with the help of lightweight principles. The proposed scheme leverages National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved post-quantum cryptographic primitives (e.g., CRYSTALS-Kyber, HQC, SHA3-256), while the overall authentication protocol design is novel and constitutes the main contribution of our work.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have different security problems in addition to nice properties such as low latency and wide coverage. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) rely on these satellites for communication, which makes authentication with Network Control Centres (NCCs) critical. In this paper, a physically unclonable function (PUF)-based lightweight, post-quantum mutual authentication and key establishment protocol tailored for satellite-assisted UAV-NCC links is proposed to address these problems. The scheme uses the benefits of PUF and lightweight cryptographic operations to obtain an efficient scheme for resource-constrained environments while ensuring mutual authentication and quantum-resistant session key establishment.
The emergence of quantum computing is expected to break many conventional cryptographic algorithms currently used for authentication and secure communication. Existing security mechanisms in Next Generation Networks (NGNs), including 5G, IoT, smart healthcare, and cloud-based systems, are increasingly vulnerable to future quantum attacks. This research presents a lightweight and efficient Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) based authentication framework specifically designed for next generation network environments. The proposed framework combines quantum-resistant cryptographic techniques with optimized authentication procedures to provide secure identity verification, confidential communication, and attack resistance with minimal computational complexity. The model emphasizes reduced overhead, faster authentication response, and scalability for resource-constrained devices. Security analysis shows that the framework can effectively defend against replay attacks, impersonation attacks, session hijacking, and quantum-based cryptanalytic threats. Experimental evaluation indicates that the proposed approach achieves improved security performance while maintaining low latency and reduced resource consumption, making it suitable for practical deployment in future intelligent communication networks.
This paper proposes a lightweight and high-security identity authentication technique for satellite signaling, enhanced through the integration of a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG). By compressing the key length to 128 bits, the method reduces authentication latency to approximately 100 µs on commonly used satellite MCUs, while introducing quantum-origin entropy to address the inherent trade-offs among security, bandwidth, power consumption, and latency in satellite communication systems. Without altering the essential communication functions or the signaling transparency of satellites, the scheme utilizes high-entropy quantum random numbers generated by the QRNG chip, combined with the SM3-based key derivation algorithm and the SM4 encryption algorithm, to achieve low-power and low-latency authentication. This design effectively eliminates the performance bottlenecks and security vulnerabilities associated with traditional pseudorandom number generators and significantly improves the system's security and reliability. Experimental results show that QRNG integration substantially reduces system latency and mitigates security threats such as man-in-the-middle attacks and unauthorized terminal replication, while also providing resistance to quantum-computing-based attacks, thereby offering a robust security foundation for satellite communications in the emerging quantum computing era.
IoT devices face mounting security threats: tightly bounded computing budgets on one side, the imminent arrival of quantum adversaries on the other. We present a bidirectional authentication protocol that pairs Physical Unclonable Functions with hash-based primitives so that no long-term key ever sits in device-side non-volatile memory. The scheme is best characterised as Grover-tolerant rather than fully post-quantum: hash one-wayness incurs a quadratic-only slowdown under quantum search, and PUF unclonability adds a physical, non-cryptographic uniqueness assumption - we do not claim parity with NIST-standardised lattice or code-based schemes. Mutual authentication is achieved with conditional forward secrecy and weak unlinkability against external eavesdroppers, while delivering 24.3 ms latency, 15.7 mJ per-authentication energy, and a 136-byte exchange on ESP32. ProVerif symbolic verification, complemented by a sketched QROM reduction with explicit PUF-leakage modelling, covers replay, MITM, impersonation, and physical-capture adversaries. Environmental stressing from 0 °C to 70 °C confirms practical reliability. We deliberately omit ephemeral key exchange and anonymous credentials - the price of doing so is the conditional and partial (rather than full) flavours of forward secrecy and anonymity, which we make explicit throughout.
ABSTRACT Quantum computing poses a looming threat to the cryptographic primitives that secure today's satellite communications. In response, post‐quantum cryptography (PQC) has emerged to protect data against future quantum‐enabled adversaries. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of lattice‐based PQC methods for secure satellite communication in the post‐quantum era. We examine the performance and security of leading lattice‐based schemes—including encryption/key‐establishment algorithms like CRYSTALS‐Kyber and NTRU, and digital signature schemes like CRYSTALS‐Dilithium and FALCON—in the context of satellite systems. Real‐world benchmark data from peer‐reviewed sources are used to evaluate computational efficiency, bandwidth overhead, memory footprint, and energy consumption of these schemes on resource‐constrained satellite hardware. We compare lattice‐based approaches with classical RSA/ECC and alternative post‐quantum techniques (hash‐based signatures, code‐based encryption), highlighting the favorable trade‐offs that have led to lattice‐based algorithms becoming primary candidates for standardization. Security analysis is presented to explain the hardness assumptions (e.g., Learning With Errors and NTRU problems) that underpin lattice cryptography, and to assess known cryptanalytic results, resistance to quantum attacks, and remaining security margins. We also discuss practical considerations for deploying lattice‐based cryptography on satellites, including integration into existing communication protocols, potential need for hardware acceleration, and strategies for cryptographic agility in long‐lived space assets. The results show that lattice‐based PQC can be feasibly implemented in satellites with acceptable performance impact, providing strong security against quantum threats and a viable path to future‐proof the confidentiality and authenticity of satellite communications.