This work presents the design and evaluation of a Post-Quantum Secure DevOps Pipeline integrating Falcon, Dilithium, and Kyber within automated CI/CD workflows. The implementation combines Open Quantum Safe (OQS), GitHub Actions, Docker, Prometheus, and Grafana to evaluate operational feasibility, cryptographic latency, verification performance, and quantum-safe deployment readiness. The study demonstrates that post-quantum cryptography can be integrated into practical DevSecOps environments with minimal operational overhead while maintaining strong cryptographic assurance against future quantum threats. This repository includes:- Research paper (PDF)- Conference presentation slides- Benchmarking results- Architecture diagrams- Supporting implementation artifacts Presented at:QAHE Global Connect Conference 2026London, United Kingdom Keywords:Post-Quantum Cryptography, DevSecOps, CI/CD, Falcon, Dilithium, Kyber, Quantum-Safe Infrastructure, Open Quantum Safe, Cybersecurity
This work presents the design and evaluation of a Post-Quantum Secure DevOps Pipeline integrating Falcon, Dilithium, and Kyber within automated CI/CD workflows. The implementation combines Open Quantum Safe (OQS), GitHub Actions, Docker, Prometheus, and Grafana to evaluate operational feasibility, cryptographic latency, verification performance, and quantum-safe deployment readiness. The study demonstrates that post-quantum cryptography can be integrated into practical DevSecOps environments with minimal operational overhead while maintaining strong cryptographic assurance against future quantum threats. This repository includes:- Research paper (PDF)- Conference presentation slides- Benchmarking results- Architecture diagrams- Supporting implementation artifacts Presented at:QAHE Global Connect Conference 2026London, United Kingdom Keywords:Post-Quantum Cryptography, DevSecOps, CI/CD, Falcon, Dilithium, Kyber, Quantum-Safe Infrastructure, Open Quantum Safe, Cybersecurity
Quantum computing poses a critical threat to classical public-key cryptography, driving the adoption of post-quantum cryptography (PQC).While PQC performance has been extensively benchmarked in TLS, empirical studies on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol remain limited.This paper evaluates the integration of PQC and hybrid (classical+PQC) mechanisms into SSH using an OQS-OpenSSH 8.9 prototype with liboqs support.We measured handshake latency, session size, and Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) transfer performance across standardized algorithms (CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS Dilithium, Sphincs+), Falcon, and hybrid configurations.Experiments on heterogeneous legacy hardware under realistic LAN conditions were validated through Wireshark captures and protocol checklists.The results show that Falcon yields the smallest handshake sizes, Dilithium offers balanced and stable performance, Kyber scales predictably with NIST security levels, and Sphincs+ incurs significant overhead.Hybrid modes add limited cost while retaining classical trust anchors.These findings extend SSH PQC research beyond handshake analysis, offering deployment-oriented guidance for quantum-safe migration.
As quantum computing advances, modern cryptographic standards face an existential threat, necessitating a transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium as standardized PQC algorithms for secure key exchange and digital signatures, respectively. This study conducts a comprehensive performance analysis of these algorithms by benchmarking execution times across cryptographic operations such as key generation, encapsulation, decapsulation, signing, and verification. Additionally, the impact of AVX2 optimizations is evaluated to assess hardware acceleration benefits. Our findings demonstrate that Kyber and Dilithium achieve efficient execution times, outperforming classical cryptographic schemes such as RSA and ECDSA at equivalent security levels. Beyond technical performance, the real-world deployment of PQC introduces challenges in telecommunications networks, where large-scale infrastructure upgrades, interoperability with legacy systems, and regulatory constraints must be addressed. This paper examines the feasibility of PQC adoption in telecom environments, highlighting key transition challenges, security risks, and implementation strategies. Through industry case studies, we illustrate how telecom operators are integrating PQC into 5G authentication, subscriber identity protection, and secure communications. Our analysis provides insights into the computational trade-offs, deployment considerations, and standardization efforts shaping the future of quantum-safe cryptographic infrastructure.
6G networks will require quantum-secure cryptography deployed across core infrastructure, edge nodes, resource-constrained IoT devices. Although post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms have been standardized by NIST, their practical deployability in bandwidth and latency limited wireless systems remains unclear. This paper presents a practical evaluation of NIST selected PQC schemes, including ML-KEM (Kyber), ML-DSA (Dilithium), and Falcon. Benchmarks conducted with OpenSSL and the OQS provider on heterogeneous platforms show that while computational performance is acceptable, ciphertext and signature size expansion significantly impact handshake reliability and bandwidth efficiency, particularly at the network edge. The results highlight key system-level trade-offs and motivate the need for PQC optimization and deployment-aware design for future quantum-secure 6G networks.
As the advent of quantum computing threatens traditional cryptographic protocols, hybrid classical-quantum secure communication infrastructures have emerged as a critical frontier in cybersecurity. This paper explores the integration of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms—specifically CRYSTALS-Kyber for key encapsulation and CRYSTALS-Dilithium for digital signatures—into hybrid communication architectures designed to resist quantum-level attacks. Leveraging lattice-based cryptographic primitives, both algorithms have been selected for standardization by NIST due to their robust security and performance characteristics. This study evaluates their implementation in real-world communication stacks, assesses latency and throughput under hybrid channel configurations, and proposes a layered security architecture combining classical and quantum-resilient mechanisms. Furthermore, it examines key management, digital trust, and infrastructure scalability in a post-quantum context. Simulation results and hardware-based validations are used to determine practical deployment feasibility in critical sectors such as finance, defense, and healthcare. The findings offer a comprehensive framework for securing data in transitional computing eras, ensuring forward secrecy, and maintaining operational integrity against future adversarial quantum threats.
The development of quantum computing technology is progressing very quickly, which poses a great threat to classical cryptographic algorithms like RSA and ECC, as they are based on mathematical problems that can be easily solved using quantum computing technology. To overcome the threat of quantum computing technology, the need for PQC algorithms like CRYSTALS Kyber, CRYSTALS Dilithium, Falcon, and SPHINCS+, which are standardized or recommended by NIST, has become essential in the era of cybersecurity. The feasibility of these algorithms in real time applications is the main focus of this thesis. A mixed approach is adopted for this purpose. Benchmark experiments were performed using the Open Quantum Safe library and PQC enabled OpenSSL for key generation, encryption, decryption, signature generation, signature verification, and TLS handshakes. Simulated environment and cloud environment were used for this purpose. Moreover, case studies were also conducted for cloud computing, financial sector, and IoT applications. Additionally, threat modeling is also performed for assessing the migration risks, i.e., “harvest now decrypt later.” The results indicate that the lattice-based methods, like Kyber and Dilithium, offer a robust trade off in terms of performance and security, albeit with increased key and signature sizes compared to classical methods. Hash based methods, like SPHINCS+, offer robust security, albeit with significant performance and size overheads, indicating that they are best used in specific circumstances. Hybrid approaches, using classical as well as quantum methods, were indicated as viable in the transition from classical to quantum methods, especially in circumstances that require backward compatibility. The paper concludes that NIST standardized PQC algorithms are technically viable for contemporary applications, especially in cloud computing and high-performance computing. However, for large-scale implementation, proper engineering and monitoring of developments in crypt analysis need to be performed. Future research should be directed towards implementation optimization, migration frameworks, and further studies in real-world implementations, especially for resource-constrained IoT and legacy system applications.
The 2024 NIST finalisation of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards -- CRYSTALS-Kyber (FIPS 203), CRYSTALS-Dilithium (FIPS 204), FALCON (FIPS 205), and SPHINCS+ -- marks the transition from research to deployment-ready quantum-resistant cryptography. This paper proposes the Post-Quantum Cryptography Algorithm Evaluation (PQCAE) framework, a systematic performance and security analysis of five NIST-standardised and candidate PQC algorithms across five deployment dimensions: key/signature size, computational performance, security level, implementation complexity, and hardware acceleration potential. PQCAE evaluates CRYSTALS-Kyber-768, CRYSTALS-Dilithium-3, FALCON-512, SPHINCS+-128s, and BIKE-L1 on three hardware platforms (x86-64 server, ARM Cortex-M4 embedded, and FPGA). CRYSTALS-Kyber achieves the best overall profile for key encapsulation -- fastest operations (KeyGen 0.06 ms, Encaps 0.08 ms, Decaps 0.09 ms on x86-64) with compact keys. FALCON-512 provides the smallest signature sizes (897 bytes) at moderate computational cost. SPHINCS+ offers the strongest conservative security (hash-based, no lattice assumptions) but largest signatures (8 KB). PQCAE provides migration guidance for organisations transitioning from classical to post-quantum cryptography.