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.
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.
Device authentication and key exchange protocol are essential front line of access controls in IoT security, and physical unclonable function (PUF) is a key enabler to lightweight, low-power and secure authentication of internet enabled endpoint devices in IoT. Current PUF-enabled authentication protocol requires the verifier to store a sufficiently large number of challenge-response pairs (CRPs) of each of its interlocutors, which makes the protocol impractical in application scenarios where the verifier is a resource-constrained device, especially when the verifier needs to communicate with multiple PUF- embedded endpoints. To solve this problem, a new lightweight PUF-based mutual authentication and key-exchange protocol is proposed in this paper to allow two resource-constrained PUF embedded endpoint devices to authenticate each other without the need to store the CRPs locally, and simultaneously establish the session key for secure data exchange without resorting to public-key algorithm. The PUF response reliability is mitigated by the use of reverse fuzzy extractor to offload the compute- intensive error decoding to the server during the initialization phase of the protocol. The proposed protocol is evaluated using ProVerif to corroborate its secrecy, mutual authenticity as well as resistance against replay and man-in-the-middle attacks.
With the rapid development of quantum computing, in response to its disruptive threats to traditional cryptosystems and the urgent demand for lightweight and highly scalable secure group communication among resource-constrained devices in large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios, this paper proposes a lightweight anonymous group authentication scheme that integrates Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs), distributed Gossip algorithms, and quantum key distribution. By exploiting the uniqueness and unclonability derived from the inherent physical characteristics of PUF hardware, the scheme fundamentally eliminates attack vectors against quantum computers without requiring devices to pre-store any secret keys in their memory, while the QKCS pre-provisions CRPs and key seeds, which is the standard enrollment procedure in PUF-based systems. Combined with information-theoretically secure quantum keys as session keys, it forms a dual protection mechanism: anti-forgery at the physical layer and anti-quantum attack at the cryptographic layer. Innovatively, the Gossip algorithm is deeply integrated with group key agreement, converting global broadcast into local iterative interactions between nodes, which effectively alleviates broadcast storms and improves the scalability and fault tolerance of the protocol. Meanwhile, a pseudonym mechanism is introduced to achieve anonymous identity protection, and a dynamic key update strategy guarantees forward and backward security when members join or leave the group. Formal verification based on BAN logic and security analysis show that the proposed protocol can resist typical attacks such as replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and impersonation attacks. Performance evaluations demonstrate that our scheme outperforms existing comparable schemes in terms of computational cost, communication overhead, and dynamic group management efficiency, demonstrating its potential for resource-constrained IoT environments, pending further validation on real hardware platforms.
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.
Peer to Peer (P2P) or direct connection IoT has become increasingly popular owing to its lower latency and higher privacy compared to database-driven or server-based IoT. However, wireless vulnerabilities raise severe concerns on IoT device-to-device communication. This is further aggravated by the challenge to achieve lightweight direct mutual authentication and secure key exchange between IoT peer nodes in P2P IoT applications. Physical unclonable function (PUF) is a key enabler to lightweight, low-power and secure authentication of resource-constrained devices in IoT. Nevertheless, current PUF-enabled authentication protocols, with or without the challenge-response pairs (CRPs) of each of its interlocutors stored in the verifier’s side, are incompatible for P2P IoT scenarios due to the security, storage and computing power limitations of IoT devices. To solve this problem, a new lightweight PUF-based mutual authentication and key-exchange protocol is proposed. It allows two resource-constrained PUF embedded endpoint devices to authenticate each other directly without the need for local storage of CRP or any private secrets, and simultaneously establish the session key for secure data exchange without resorting to public-key algorithm. The proposed protocol is evaluated using the Mao and Boyd logic as well as the automatic security analysis tool ProVerif to corroborate its mutual authenticity, secrecy, and resistance against replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. Using two Avnet Ultra96-V2 boards to emulate the two IoT endpoint devices of a network, a physical prototype system is also constructed to demonstrate and validate the feasibility of the proposed secure P2P connection scheme.
In this paper, a lattice-based lightweight authentication protocol is proposed for resource-constrained devices. The constructed protocol provides post-quantum security by relying on the hardness of module learning with errors (MLWE) assumption over lattices. Physical unclonable function (PUF), message authentication code (MAC), and exclusive or (XOR) operations are used to satisfy lightweight considerations. Informal security analysis shows that the proposed scheme provides integrity, confidentiality, anonymity, mutual authentication, and replay attack resistance. For performance evaluations based on resource-limited environments, two different authentication scenarios are constructed on the ESP32 platform, and analyses are presented in terms of running time, communication cost, and CPU cycles.
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.