. Quantum computing technology is developing at a pace that threatens classic public-key ciphers, including those based on integer factorization and elliptic-curve discrete logarithms. In response, it has been proposed to work towards a hybrid model that can be used in the short term and that is based on the combination of classical Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Post-Quantum Cryptographic (PQC) primitives, increasing security where classically secure key exchanges are used and found to be secure against quantum attacks. The proposed protocol combines ephemeral ECDH key exchange with Falcon-512 digital signatures to provide authenticated session establishment with forward secrecy. This work extends upon these results and assesses as well as justifies the construction of hybrid ECC-Lattice protocols, specifically ECC + Falcon, for quantum-safe authentication and authenticated key establishment. The results highlight that hybrid architecture provides a balanced trade-off between performance, interoperability, and robustness against quantum transition period, positioning them as an essential pathway in the global migration toward quantum-safe cryptography. The protocol was implemented and evaluated under controlled network conditions using 2000 protocol executions. Experimental results demonstrated an average handshake latency of 41.61 ms, a throughput of 24.03 handshakes per second, and a total communication overhead of 1434 bytes per handshake. The results indicate that the proposed Hybrid ECC–Falcon protocol achieves efficient authenticated key establishment while maintaining moderate communication costs. By combining ECDH-based forward secrecy with Falcon-512 post-quantum authentication, the protocol provides a practical solution for secure communications during the post-quantum transition period, particularly in post-quantum transition environments.
. Quantum computing technology is developing at a pace that threatens classic public-key ciphers, including those based on integer factorization and elliptic-curve discrete logarithms. In response, it has been proposed to work towards a hybrid model that can be used in the short term and that is based on the combination of classical Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Post-Quantum Cryptographic (PQC) primitives, increasing security where classically secure key exchanges are used and found to be secure against quantum attacks. The proposed protocol combines ephemeral ECDH key exchange with Falcon-512 digital signatures to provide authenticated session establishment with forward secrecy. This work extends upon these results and assesses as well as justifies the construction of hybrid ECC-Lattice protocols, specifically ECC + Falcon, for quantum-safe authentication and authenticated key establishment. The results highlight that hybrid architecture provides a balanced trade-off between performance, interoperability, and robustness against quantum transition period, positioning them as an essential pathway in the global migration toward quantum-safe cryptography. The protocol was implemented and evaluated under controlled network conditions using 2000 protocol executions. Experimental results demonstrated an average handshake latency of 41.61 ms, a throughput of 24.03 handshakes per second, and a total communication overhead of 1434 bytes per handshake. The results indicate that the proposed Hybrid ECC–Falcon protocol achieves efficient authenticated key establishment while maintaining moderate communication costs. By combining ECDH-based forward secrecy with Falcon-512 post-quantum authentication, the protocol provides a practical solution for secure communications during the post-quantum transition period, particularly in post-quantum transition environments.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing has posed a significant threat to traditional public-key cryptographic systems, particularly those based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). Although ECC has long been valued for its strong classical security and computational efficiency, quantum algorithms capable of solving the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem would render these systems vulnerable in the near future. This study investigated how secure elliptic-curve-based cryptographic systems could be redesigned for the post-quantum era by integrating post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) primitives into hybrid security architectures. A design-oriented and analytical research approach was employed to compare classical ECC, standalone PQC, and hybrid ECC–PQC models using quantitative measures of security strength, computational cost, and communication overhead. The results demonstrated that while ECC provided excellent performance, it lacked quantum resistance, whereas PQC offered strong quantum-safe security at the cost of higher computational and bandwidth requirements. The hybrid ECC–PQC approach achieved the most balanced outcome, combining high classical efficiency with robust quantum resistance and strong long-term security. Numerical performance evaluation showed that hybrid systems increased execution time and handshake size moderately compared to PQC alone, yet delivered significantly improved security guarantees. These findings confirmed that hybrid cryptographic architectures represent a practical and reliable pathway for migrating existing elliptic-curve infrastructures toward quantum-resilient security. The study contributed a mathematically grounded and deployment-oriented framework that supports secure, gradual transition strategies for protecting digital communications in a quantum-enabled future.
Currently available cryptographic algorithms such as the RSA, Diffie-Hellman and the ECC are used in securing most Internet communications across the Internet. Theoretical quantum algorithms (and the Shor algorithm in particular) were demonstrated to be able to efficiently break that type of classical cryptography as soon as large-scale quantum computers are developed. To handle this new emerging security problem, PQC has been proposed as a class of cryptographic algorithms that is resistant to both quantum and classical attackers. It is a research paper offering and experimentally implementing a hybrid PQC-TLS protocol in a heterogeneous network architecture which includes edge computing devices and cloud computing and IoT devices. The suggested architecture integrates both lattice-based CRYSTALS-Kyber key encapsulation scheme and CRYSTALS-Dilithium digital signature scheme in the TLS 1.3 handshake without being interoperable with the older ECC-based key exchange schemes. Five measures of performance that included handshake latency, CPU consumption, memory consumption, bandwidth overhead and energy consumption were analyzed in detail through experimentation. The experiments were conducted using in Iot, edge and cloud nodes under controlled conditions that were repeated a number of times to give reliability in the statistics. The results indicate that the integration of PQC has moderate overhead (mean increase in latency about 1517) and decent computational and energy requirements. Another method of resisting popular attacks on networks like as the man in the middle, replay, and downgrade attacks, is security validation. The findings indicate that quantum resilient secure communication migration to a heterogeneous distributed infrastructure can be practically and scalably provided using hybrid PQC-TLS protocols. Statistical analysis including standard deviation and 95% confidence intervals was performed to validate the reliability of the results.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing threatens the security foundations of classical public-key cryptographic systems such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which underpin cloud and edge infrastructures. With scalable quantum algorithms capable of breaking widely deployed cryptographic primitives, organizations must transition toward quantum-resilient security models. This paper proposes a comprehensive Quantum-Resilient Cryptographic Architecture (QRCA) designed specifically for cloud and edge computing environments. The framework integrates post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms, hybrid key exchange protocols, zero-trust principles, and hardware-assisted secure enclaves. We present a layered security model that balances computational overhead, latency constraints, and scalability requirements in distributed systems. Experimental simulations evaluate performance metrics including encryption latency, key exchange overhead, and throughput across cloud data centres and edge nodes. Results indicate that hybrid PQC deployments achieve strong quantum resilience with manageable performance trade-offs. The proposed architecture offers a practical migration pathway for organizations seeking future-proof cryptographic security in distributed computing ecosystems.
Quantum computing poses a growing challenge to conventional public-key cryptographic systems, particularly those relying on integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems. Widely deployed schemes such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography are expected to become vulnerable as large-scale quantum computing capabilities emerge. This concern has intensified the demand for communication frameworks capable of maintaining long-term confidentiality in the presence of both classical and quantum-enabled adversaries. This paper presents a Hybrid Quantum-Resilient Key Exchange Algorithm (HKEA) that combines classical cryptographic mechanisms with lattice-based post-quantum cryptographic techniques to establish secure session keys. The proposed framework employs a dual-layer key establishment process in which classical and post-quantum shared secrets are integrated to generate a strengthened hybrid session key. The design aims to preserve compatibility with existing communication infrastructures while improving resistance to future quantum attacks and mitigating risks associated with Harvest-Now-Decrypt-Later (HNDL) threats. A prototype implementation was developed using Python-based cryptographic and post-quantum security libraries. The framework was evaluated using key generation time, latency, throughput, computational overhead, and security strength as performance indicators. Comparative analysis against conventional cryptographic approaches indicates that the proposed HKEA provides enhanced quantum resilience with only a modest increase in computational cost. The proposed approach offers a practical pathway toward secure and scalable communication systems for next-generation quantum-era network environments.
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 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.