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.
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.
The rapid growth of 5G wireless technology has transformed connectivity, offering exceptional bandwidth, ultralow latency, and massive IoT device connectivity.However, as quantum computers are progressing, resistance against attacks from such computers becomes a mandatory requirement for all critical infrastructure, necessitating efficient post-quantum cryptography (PQC) implementations for 5G-based IoT devices with limited resources.For instance, User Equipment (UE) reauthentication due to frequent handovers and mobility events is a daily operation that already comes with some overhead, which is not attractive to be used for IoT UE devices.Incorporating heavier PQ solutions into these re-authentications will lead to even more additional communication and computation overhead that may hinder PQ deployment in next generation networks.As such, this paper introduces a novel, lightweight approach for integrating PQC in 5G IoT authentication by proposing a custom identity-based session resumption mechanism without compromising interoperability with existing protocols.This approach prevents replay attacks and ensures perfect forward secrecy (PFS) by utilizing customized identities that are dynamically generated based on device-specific parameters, combined with intelligent server-side caching of quantum-resistant cryptographic materials that eliminate the need for full PQC computations during subsequent re-authentications.We demonstrate through realistic 5G experimentation that the proposed solution significantly lowers authentication overhead while providing quantumresistant security.
The rapid evolution of 5G and emerging 6G telecom networks introduces new security challenges due to the potential threat posed by quantum computing to conventional cryptographic algorithms. This study proposes a post-quantum cryptographic framework for protecting critical 5G and 6G telecom infrastructure against quantum-enabled attacks. The framework investigates quantum-resistant cryptographic mechanisms for secure key establishment, authentication, data confidentiality, and communication integrity. Performance is evaluated using key size, encryption and decryption time, computational overhead, latency, and throughput. The proposed approach aims to achieve a balance between quantum resistance and network efficiency, providing a scalable and resilient security solution for next-generation wireless communication environments.
The potential of the swift development of quantum computing is an extreme danger to the traditional cryptographic programs, and they are the foundation of the modern communication infrastructure. RSA and ECC are classical public-key algorithms that can be successfully quantum-attacked, in particular, Shor's algorithm can easily factor large integers and calculate discrete logarithms (Bernstein et al., 2017). The Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) has become the key to secure the next-generation communication networks against these threats, which relies on lattice problem-based algorithms, hash-based based algorithms, multivariate polynomials-based algorithms, and code-based cryptography. The paper examines the concepts, design, and implementation issues of PQC within current network infrastructure focusing on the secure transmission of data, authentication, and key management in the upcoming 5G and 6G networks. The approach will include the survey of existing algorithms of PQC, model the integration of protocol in the communication systems and test computational efficiency, security strength, and scalability. It has been found that PQC is suitable to protect network communications against quantum attackers, and achieves reasonable performance, though trade-offs can be seen in terms of computation overhead, key size, and latency. The research offers understanding to the researcher, network engineers and policy makers in order to adopt quantum resistant cryptography protocols to secure the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of information in the future communication networks.
The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced unprecedented cybersecurity challenges, as traditional cryptographic methods struggle to provide both efficiency and quantum resistance in resource-constrained environments. This research introduces Adaptive Quantum Cryptography (AQC), a novel security framework that integrates Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNGs), and AI-driven dynamic adaptation to safeguard IoT networks against evolving cyber threats. Unlike classical encryption techniques such as RSA and ECC, which are vulnerable to quantum attacks, AQC leverages quantum mechanical principles—such as superposition, entanglement, and the no-cloning theorem—to ensure provably secure key exchange and data encryption. The proposed AQC system dynamically adjusts cryptographic protocols based on real-time network conditions, computational resources, and threat intelligence, optimizing security without imposing excessive overhead. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that AQC achieves a 70% improvement in key exchange efficiency, a 50% reduction in computational load, and a 95% resilience rate against quantum attacks compared to conventional encryption methods. Additionally, the integration of QRNGs enhances cryptographic key entropy, while AI-driven anomaly detection enables proactive threat mitigation. This framework is particularly suited for next-generation IoT applications, including smart grids, autonomous vehicles, and industrial automation, where security, scalability, and energy efficiency are critical. By combining quantum-resistant algorithms with adaptive security mechanisms, AQC provides forward secrecy, resistance to quantum adversaries, and robust authentication, ensuring long-term protection for IoT ecosystems in the post-quantum era. The findings underscore AQC’s potential as a foundational security architecture for future quantum-safe IoT networks.
The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems has introduced significant security challenges due to resource-constrained devices, heterogeneous network architectures, and largescale connectivity. Traditional authentication and key exchange mechanisms, primarily based on classical cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and ECC, are vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks. The emergence of quantum algorithms, particularly Shor’s algorithm, threatens the long-term confidentiality and integrity of IoT communications. This paper proposes a Quantum-Resistant Authentication and Key Exchange Protocol specifically designed for secure IoT architectures. The proposed framework integrates post-quantum cryptographic primitives, including lattice-based key exchange mechanisms and hash-based authentication schemes, optimized for low computational overhead suitable for constrained IoT devices. The protocol ensures mutual authentication, forward secrecy, and resistance against quantum adversaries while maintaining minimal communication latency. Security analysis demonstrates robustness against replay, man-in-the-middle, and key-compromise attacks. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed solution achieves a balance between quantum security strength and resource efficiency, making it suitable for next-generation IoT deployments in smart cities, healthcare systems, and industrial automation.
Quantum computing advancements create threat to encryption systems which protect modern digital communication networks. The integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems which RSA and ECC algorithms depend on become vulnerable to Shor's algorithm when large-scale quantum computers achieve operational status. Billions of small IoT devices operating in resource-constrained environments face a major security risk because their lightweight encryption methods lack protection against quantum-level attacks. The research investigates Post-Quantum Cryptography(PQC) as a new cryptographic framework which protects against both quantum and classical attacks. The proposed system integrates three advanced elements that work together to provide lattice-based encryption for mathematical security and hash-based signature schemes for authentication and an intelligent threat detection system. The hybrid framework provides complete security protection while maintaining high performance and low processing requirements which makes it suitable for protecting IoT networks.