Hybrid protocols that combine Post-Quantum (PQ) and traditional primitives, allowing flexible switching based on the threat level, provide optimal trade-offs between efficiency and security. The recently published HM-AKA scheme introduced a basic framework for this setup, but it fails to provide security against impersonation attacks by a semi-trusted TTP in some of its proposed modes. This vulnerability arises due to the asymmetric behavior of PQ primitives compared to traditional public-key primitives. We identify this threat and propose an enhanced version, HM-AKA+, that maintains the framework’s flexibility while ensuring security.
Hybrid protocols that combine Post-Quantum (PQ) and traditional primitives, allowing flexible switching based on the threat level, provide optimal trade-offs between efficiency and security. The recently published HM-AKA scheme introduced a basic framework for this setup, but it fails to provide security against impersonation attacks by a semi-trusted TTP in some of its proposed modes. This vulnerability arises due to the asymmetric behavior of PQ primitives compared to traditional public-key primitives. We identify this threat and propose an enhanced version, HM-AKA+, that maintains the framework’s flexibility while ensuring security.
The imminent advent of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of classical public-key cryptography, creating critical challenges for resource-constrained internet of things (IoT) environments.Hybrid cryptographic frameworks combining elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) primitives have emerged as a transitional solution; however, their security properties remain insufficiently validated under semi-trusted infrastructure assumptions.This paper presents a comprehensive security evaluation of a hybrid ECC-KEM authentication and key agreement framework targeting IoT deployments.Using a dual-verification methodology that integrates formal symbolic analysis with the Tamarin-Prover and practical AI-assisted testing via the APSVer tool, we identify a critical impersonation vulnerability that enables a semi-trusted third party (TTP) to reconstruct PUF-based authentication material.To mitigate this flaw, we introduce a protocol enhancement incorporating ML-DSA post-quantum digital signatures and device-isolated key derivation.Formal verification confirms that the enhanced protocol achieves mutual authentication, session key secrecy, replay resistance, and effective isolation of the TTP.Experimental performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed security improvements introduce only a 12%-15% computational overhead, preserving feasibility for constrained IoT devices.The proposed framework provides a practical, quantum-resilient authentication architecture suitable for next-generation secure IoT deployments.
The current 5G-AKA protocol faces significant security challenges, including the lack of Perfect Forward Secrecy and Post-Quantum (PQ) security. In particular, the absence of PQ protection makes current communications vulnerable to future quantum adversaries who may decrypt stored messages once large-scale quantum computers become available. To mitigate this risk, a transition to PQ security must be implemented as soon as possible. Two primary approaches exist for this transition: (1) symmetric key-based techniques, which require a secure channel for key distribution, leading to increased costs, and (2) modern PQ public-key primitives, which offer stronger security but come with high communication overhead. In this paper, we propose a solution that leverages PQ cryptographic primitives for confidentiality and privacy protection, while retaining classical public-key cryptography for authentication. This approach is viable because digital signatures must be secure today, even if they are compromised in the future. Moreover, our framework allows for a seamless transition to fully PQ-secure authentication when quantum threats become imminent. In addition, the framework also supports the zero-trust architecture in which no secure channel between Serving Network (SN) and Home Network (HN) is assumed. We have carefully analysed the security of the proposed protocol using both informal and formal (Real-Or-Random (ROR) logic and Scyther Validation tool) methods. We also compared its performance in terms of computation, communication, and storage, and found that it performs better than existing protocols.
The potential of quantum computing to compromise traditional public-key cryptography (PKC) has led to a pressing need for more efficient and resilient cryptographic methods. Recent advancements, such as the 800x improvement in the logical error rate by Microsoft and QUANTINUUM, underscore the urgency of this issue. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) offers a promising solution designed to withstand quantum attacks. This paper examines how PQC and other advanced cryptographic techniques can enhance the security and efficiency of PKC in the quantum era. Current PKC methods, despite revolutionizing secure online communication, are vulnerable to flaws in their underlying algorithms. The proposed hybrid model integrates PQC with traditional PKC, leveraging both technologies' strengths to mitigate quantum threats while preserving established security benefits. The investigation addresses critical research questions: how to enhance PKC key management for better efficiency and security, and which PQC techniques can protect PKC from quantum attacks. This paper's contribution includes identifying vulnerabilities in existing PKC, comparing RSA and post-quantum algorithms, and implementing a PQC algorithm between a client and server to analyze integration with existing protocols. Finally, the paper recommends security mechanisms to improve PQC protocols, ensuring robust protection against emerging quantum computing capabilities.
The emergence of quantum computing poses a threat to classical cryptography algorithms, necessitating a shift to quantum secure cryptography. Hybrid protocols combining at least one classical and one quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithm are becoming the standard for securing communications. In this work, we present our novel solution for integrating three different cryptographic assumptions (two of them quantumresistant) into hybrid network security protocols, ensuring that three different cryptographic assumptions must be broken before the protocol becomes vulnerable. Our solution allows for a seamless integration of classical and post-quantum (PQ) cryptography, and quantum key distribution (QKD) into existing network security protocols (e.g., TLS, IPsec) without any major modifications to the protocols themselves. This crypto-agility ensures the mitigation of some of the most well known challenges of both PQ cryptography and QKD. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of such triple-hybrid network security protocols, showing non-substantial decrease in performance and almost no added packet overhead compared to state of the art protocols. In exchange, we pave the way towards next generation networks where the potential of new quantum-resistant cryptographic schemes can be leveraged in a dynamic and agile fashion, thus fostering a new era of unbreakable communication systems.
The evolution of 6G networks necessitates robust authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols to counter emerging security challenges, particularly the threat posed by quantum computing. Existing 5G-AKA protocols remain vulnerable to user tracking, replay attacks, and false base station impersonation, while Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and RSA-based key exchanges face imminent obsolescence due to quantum attacks. This study examines the vulnerabilities of 5G-AKA and explores hybrid post-quantum cryptography (PQC) as a transitional security solution for 6G networks. We evaluate NIST-standardized PQC algorithms, focusing on their computational overhead, key size efficiency, and adaptability to heterogeneous network environments, including IoT and ultra-low latency applications. A comparative analysis of hybrid cryptographic schemes demonstrates that lattice-based (Kyber, Dilithium), hash-based (SPHINCS+), and code-based (BIKE, Classic McEliece) PQC techniques provide varying trade-offs between security, efficiency, and deployment feasibility. Furthermore, we propose a quantum-resistant 6G-AKA framework, integrating hybrid PQC, AI-driven trust mechanisms, and decentralized authentication to ensure scalability and interoperability. Experimental benchmarks highlight potential performance constraints, including latency in PQC-based key exchange and resource limitations in edge computing. Addressing these challenges requires the optimization of lightweight PQC implementations, formal security validation, and global standardization efforts. Our findings provide a roadmap for the secure transition to 6G authentication protocols, ensuring resilience against both classical and quantum threats.
Advancements in 5G are largely driven by its adoption across a variety of applications, including smart homes, smart healthcare, autonomous vehicles, transportation, and Industry 5.0. However, this widespread usage raises significant security and privacy concerns, particularly regarding authentication. To secure 5G communications, 3GPP has standardised the 5G-Authentication and Key Agreement (5G-AKA) protocol. Despite this, state-of-the-art research has revealed that 5G-AKA suffers from several vulnerabilities. In response, numerous alternative authentication schemes have been proposed. Nevertheless, many of these protocols continue to be susceptible to classical security threats, such as malicious serving network (SN) attacks, ephemeral secret leakage, traceability, anonymity violations, and, most critically, a lack of Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS). Additionally, recent advancements in quantum computing pose a substantial risk to the security of 5G-AKA and its variants, rendering them insecure in the post-quantum era. Although a few post-quantum cryptography-based protocols have been introduced, studies show that they are either computationally expensive or still vulnerable to quantum attacks. In order to tackle these challenges, we propose two versions of a novel authentication protocol that not only provide comprehensive security guarantees but are also computationally efficient. Version 1 utilises a hybrid cryptographic approach (AES + KEM) and achieves the lowest computational cost—even lower than Version 2, which relies solely on KEM. Both versions offer the same level of security, but Version 1 is significantly more efficient in terms of resource usage. We have validated our proposed protocols using the Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and the Scyther tool. Furthermore, we evaluated their performance against existing protocols under both known and unknown attack scenarios. The results show that our protocols incur lower computational, communication, and energy overhead, as well as strong resilience against unknown attacks, outperforming several existing authentication schemes. Furthermore, we implement a testbed to demonstrate the real-time applicability of both proposed versions.