The advent of quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional cryptographic systems, threatening the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of digital communications. This thesis investigates the integration of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms into mobile communication systems to address these challenges. The study focuses on evaluating key PQC algorithms shortlisted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, Falcon and SPHINCS+, within the context of 5G and future mobile network architectures. The research encompasses the design and implementation of an experimental framework involving mobile devices, servers, and cloud-based infrastructure to simulate real-world communication scenarios. Performance metrics such as key generation time, signature generation, encryption and decryption speed, and resource consumption were analysed across various devices to identify algorithms suitable for mobile environments. The findings reveal that lattice-based algorithms, such as Kyber and Dilithium, offer a promising balance between security and efficiency, making them ideal for resourceconstrained devices. In contrast, hash-based algorithms like SPHINCS+ exhibit higher computational demands, limiting their practicality in certain applications. This work highlights the importance of algorithm selection and hardware optimization in ensuring secure and efficient communications in the quantum era. xi By integrating theoretical advancements in PQC with practical applications, this research lays the foundation for quantum-resistant security in mobile networks, ensuring secure and futureready digital communications.
The advent of quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional cryptographic systems, threatening the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of digital communications. This thesis investigates the integration of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms into mobile communication systems to address these challenges. The study focuses on evaluating key PQC algorithms shortlisted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, Falcon and SPHINCS+, within the context of 5G and future mobile network architectures. The research encompasses the design and implementation of an experimental framework involving mobile devices, servers, and cloud-based infrastructure to simulate real-world communication scenarios. Performance metrics such as key generation time, signature generation, encryption and decryption speed, and resource consumption were analysed across various devices to identify algorithms suitable for mobile environments. The findings reveal that lattice-based algorithms, such as Kyber and Dilithium, offer a promising balance between security and efficiency, making them ideal for resourceconstrained devices. In contrast, hash-based algorithms like SPHINCS+ exhibit higher computational demands, limiting their practicality in certain applications. This work highlights the importance of algorithm selection and hardware optimization in ensuring secure and efficient communications in the quantum era. xi By integrating theoretical advancements in PQC with practical applications, this research lays the foundation for quantum-resistant security in mobile networks, ensuring secure and futureready digital communications.
The advent of quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional cryptographic systems, threatening the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of digital communications. This paper investigates the integration of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms into mobile communication systems to address these challenges. The study focuses on evaluating key PQC algorithms shortlisted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, Falcon and SPHINCS+, within the context of 5G and future mobile network architectures. The research encompasses the design and implementation of an experimental framework involving mobile devices, servers, and cloud-based infrastructure to simulate real-world communication scenarios. Performance metrics such as key generation time, signature generation, encryption and decryption speed, and resource consumption were analyzed across various devices to identify algorithms suitable for mobile environments. The findings reveal that lattice-based algorithms, such as Kyber and Dilithium, offer a promising balance between security and efficiency, making them ideal for resource-constrained devices. In contrast, hash-based algorithms like SPHINCS+ exhibit higher computational demands, limiting their practicality in certain applications. This work highlights the importance of algorithm selection and hardware optimization in ensuring secure and efficient communications in the quantum era. By integrating theoretical advancements in PQC with practical applications, this research lays the foundation for quantum-resistant security in mobile networks, ensuring secure and future-ready digital communications.
Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is a critical area of research aimed at addressing the threat quantum computing poses to traditional cryptographic systems. It focuses on evaluating the efficiency, security, and practical performance of PQC algorithms through experimental analysis. This research supports the development of optimized cryptographic solutions, contributes to standardization efforts, and ensures secure and efficient implementations for a wide range of applications. Despite progress in PQC, gaps still exist in practical performance evaluations, particularly in resource-constrained environments. There is a lack of standardized comparisons, hindering the selection of suitable algorithms for specific use cases like IoT and cloud systems. Furthermore, research on scalability, integration challenges, and the trade-offs between security and efficiency remains insufficient. The methodology involves creating a comprehensive framework to evaluate various PQC algorithms, including lattice-based (e.g., Kyber, Dilithium), code-based (e.g., McEliece), and hash-based (e.g., SPHINCS+). These algorithms will be tested in diverse environments, from resource-constrained devices to high-performance infrastructures such as cloud platforms. Key metrics such as encryption/decryption speed, key sizes, memory usage, and computational efficiency will be measured, focusing on the trade-offs between security, efficiency, and scalability. The results will be benchmarked against standardized metrics to provide a clear understanding of each algorithm's suitability for real-world deployment. The findings indicate that lattice-based algorithms like Kyber offer a strong balance between security and efficiency but require considerable computational resources. Code-based algorithms like McEliece are highly secure but come with large key sizes and slower speeds. Hash-based schemes like SPHINCS+ provide strong security but are computationally expensive, making them less suitable for resource-limited systems. The highlights the importance of optimizing PQC algorithms according to specific application requirements, where the choice of algorithm must balance security, efficiency, and resource constraints, with continuous optimization needed to address evolving real-world demands.
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.
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 advance of quantum computing poses significant risks to traditional cryptographic systems, including RSA and ECC, due to algorithms such as Shor's, prompting an urgent need for robust post-quantum cryptography (PQC) solutions. This paper presents a systematic review of PQC algorithms, encompassing lattice-based, code-based, multivariate polynomial, hash-based, and supersingular isogeny-based cryptography. By evaluating recent publications and NIST standardization efforts, we assess these approaches in terms of quantum resistance, computational efficiency, scalability, and implementation challenges. Lattice-based schemes, notably CRYSTALS-Kyber, excel in quantum-secure encryption and performance, whereas codebased systems like McEliece are hindered by large key sizes. Hash-based signatures, such as SPHINCS+, and isogeny-based protocols, including SIDH, provide promising alternatives but require further optimization to reduce computational overhead. Our analysis highlights the potential of hybrid PQC methods and lightweight hardware implementations for securing emerging domains like IoT, blockchain, and financial systems. The review serves as a foundational resource for researchers and practitioners, advocating the adoption of quantum-resistant cryptography to preserve data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity in the quantum era.
The rise of quantum computing threatens traditional cryptographic systems, driving the urgent adoption of PQC algorithms for securing IoT and edge computing environments. However, selecting an optimal PQC scheme remains challenging due to trade-offs between security strength, computational efficiency, and scalability in real-world deployments. While algorithms like CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, and SPHINCS+ offer quantum resilience. These suffer from processing overhead, high energy consumption, and limited adaptability, hindering their seamless integration into latency-sensitive and resource-constrained IoT networks. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive and systematic performance evaluation of these PQC algorithms within the context of IoT-based cryptographic scheduling workflows, assessing critical efficiency parameters such as encryption/decryption time, execution speed, system latency, energy efficiency, and scalability under varying processing loads and batch sizes. Our analysis reveals that CRYSTALS-Kyber consistently outperforms its counterparts, demonstrating superior computational efficiency, minimal processing delays, and lower power consumption while maintaining high-security resilience against quantum adversaries. Additionally, we propose a dynamic cryptographic scheduling approach, optimizing the balance between security levels and computational resource allocation, ensuring efficient cryptographic task management in large-scale IoT networks. This research provides a foundation for the practical deployment and standardization of PQC in next-generation cryptographic architectures, enabling the seamless transition from classical to quantum-secure cryptographic frameworks. The insights gained from this study are pivotal for advancing cryptographic scheduling models, enhancing security efficiency in real-time IoT operations, and driving the global adoption of PQC algorithms for future-proof digital security infrastructures.