The advent of quantum computing poses a significant threat to conventional public-key cryptographic systems, particularly resource-constrained mobile and cyber-physical environments. To address this challenge, this study proposes an implementation-oriented unified hybrid key derivation framework that integrates the Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman Ephemeral (ECDHE-P256) and post-quantum ML-KEM-768 algorithm for quantum-resilient secure communication. The proposed approach combines independently generated classical and post-quantum shared secrets through a lightweight mixing step followed by HKDF-SHA256 extraction and expansion to derive a unified 256-bit session key. This design preserves forward secrecy while enhancing resilience against quantum adversaries without requiring substantial modifications to the existing communication infrastructures. The framework was implemented on a heterogeneous testbed consisting of an x86_64 client and ARM64-based Android device. Experimental evaluations were conducted across 27 test configurations under three network latency conditions (50, 150, and 500 ms) using payload sizes of 64, 1024, and 10240 KB. Each configuration was executed for 1000 iterations to ensure statistically reliable measurements. The results demonstrate that, compared with standalone ECDHE-P256 and standalone ML-KEM-768, the proposed hybrid framework introduces only minimal computational overhead while maintaining stable resource utilization. Furthermore, network latency contributes more significantly to end-to-end communication delay than cryptographic processing overhead, indicating that the integration of classical and post-quantum cryptographic mechanisms does not constitute a major performance bottleneck. Overall, the proposed implementation-oriented framework provides a practical and lightweight transition strategy to quantum-resilient secure communication in heterogeneous mobile, IoT, and cyber-physical environments.
The advent of quantum computing poses a significant threat to conventional public-key cryptographic systems, particularly resource-constrained mobile and cyber-physical environments. To address this challenge, this study proposes an implementation-oriented unified hybrid key derivation framework that integrates the Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman Ephemeral (ECDHE-P256) and post-quantum ML-KEM-768 algorithm for quantum-resilient secure communication. The proposed approach combines independently generated classical and post-quantum shared secrets through a lightweight mixing step followed by HKDF-SHA256 extraction and expansion to derive a unified 256-bit session key. This design preserves forward secrecy while enhancing resilience against quantum adversaries without requiring substantial modifications to the existing communication infrastructures. The framework was implemented on a heterogeneous testbed consisting of an x86_64 client and ARM64-based Android device. Experimental evaluations were conducted across 27 test configurations under three network latency conditions (50, 150, and 500 ms) using payload sizes of 64, 1024, and 10240 KB. Each configuration was executed for 1000 iterations to ensure statistically reliable measurements. The results demonstrate that, compared with standalone ECDHE-P256 and standalone ML-KEM-768, the proposed hybrid framework introduces only minimal computational overhead while maintaining stable resource utilization. Furthermore, network latency contributes more significantly to end-to-end communication delay than cryptographic processing overhead, indicating that the integration of classical and post-quantum cryptographic mechanisms does not constitute a major performance bottleneck. Overall, the proposed implementation-oriented framework provides a practical and lightweight transition strategy to quantum-resilient secure communication in heterogeneous mobile, IoT, and cyber-physical environments.
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.
Traditional public-key cryptography algorithms, such as Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH), are vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. More critically, security protocols based on these algorithms are exposed to the “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” threat, an ongoing risk that emphasizes the urgency of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography. This transition presents a significant challenge for lightweight security protocols, such as Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman over COSE (EDHOC), which are designed for IoT environments. To address this, a PQ/T hybrid key exchange construction for EDHOC is proposed, combining post-quantum mechanisms alongside traditional algorithms to mitigate future quantum threats while remaining secure against current threats using well-established classical cryptography. The scheme is evaluated on a CortexM4 processor, demonstrating the best performance with ML-KEM-512, with a slight increase in processing time, limited RAM overhead, and a roughly sevenfold increase in message size. Despite these trade-offs, the hybrid construction remains practical and represents a viable option for enhancing EDHOC security in anticipation of the post-quantum era in constrained environments.
Classical public-key cryptography, mainly RSA, is at risk from the emergence of quantum computers. A complete shift to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) faces vulnerabilities due to implementation and trust issues, despite NIST's approval of standards such as ML-KEM (Kyber). This paper presented a performance and bandwidth trade-off study of a proposed Hybrid Key Encapsulation Mechanism that fused the NIST-standardized ML-KEM-768 (FIPS 203) with the traditional RSA-3072. Two separate secret keys S1 and S2 were produced and encapsulated utilizing both classical and post-quantum public keys in our dual-layered model. In order to create a strong session key that ensures trust transition and backward compatibility with current network infrastructures, these secrets were then combined using a Hybrid Key Derivation Function (HKDF). In comparison to standalone systems, the study assessed the computational cost and communication latency brought about by this hybrid overhead. According to experimental data, the hybrid architecture offers a crucial security fail-safe against both classical flaws and future quantum threats without prohibitively high performance, even though it increases ciphertext size.
The rapid development of quantum computing presents a substantial threat to traditional cryptographic algorithms, particularly those relying on mathematical problems such as integer factorization and elliptic curve operations. As a response, the cryptographic community has accelerated the design of post-quantum cryptographic schemes that can withstand attacks from both classical and quantum computers. However, many of these new schemes exhibit inherent trade-offs between performance, key sizes, and implementation complexity. To address this, we propose a novel hybrid cryptographic framework tailored for secure and efficient data transmission in future quantum-aware environments. The proposed system combines three algorithmic paradigms: a lattice-based encryption method for fast and lightweight data protection, a hash-based signature mechanism for authenticity, and a code-based key exchange method to ensure session confidentiality. This layered integration is designed to capitalize on each algorithm’s strengths while mitigating individual limitations. The system is implemented using modular components in a testbed simulating real-world deployments, and its performance is benchmarked across multiple metrics including encryption latency, signature generation time, key sizes, and throughput. Comparative results indicate that the hybrid approach outperforms monolithic schemes in critical areas such as execution time and cryptographic strength under quantum adversary models. The findings support the practicality of using multiple post-quantum primitives in tandem to build robust communication systems. This research contributes a realistic implementation and evaluation of post-quantum security models and highlights key directions for future research and standardization efforts as the global transition to quantum-safe infrastructure begins.
This study reviews post-quantum cryptographic algorithms for secure communication, focusing on standardized lattice-based schemes and their practical deployment implications. Classical public-key systems such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography remain central to secure communication, but their long-term security is threatened by quantum algorithms capable of solving factorization and discrete logarithm problems. The study adopts a hybrid approach combining literature-based review with dataset-driven performance analysis. The empirical evaluation compares ML-KEM and ML-DSA with RSA-4096 and ECDSA-P256 using CPU benchmarking and network simulation metrics. Results indicate that ML-KEM provides substantial computational advantages over RSA-4096, making it suitable for latency-sensitive key establishment. ML-DSA also demonstrates competitive performance, especially in verification, but introduces larger signature sizes than ECDSA-P256. The analysis shows that the main deployment challenge is not computational feasibility but increased communication overhead caused by larger keys, ciphertexts, and signatures. These findings suggest that post-quantum migration requires more than direct algorithm replacement. Effective deployment should involve protocol optimization, crypto-agility, hybrid transition strategies, and context-specific parameter selection. Although the dataset focuses mainly on lattice-based algorithms, the study confirms the practical relevance of standardized post-quantum schemes for future secure communication infrastructure and identifies directions for broader evaluation across additional PQC families, including code-based, hash-based, multivariate approaches, real-world networks, and implementation-level security testing in practice contexts.
The emergence of fault-tolerant quantum computing poses an existential threat to classical public-key cryptographic systems, including RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), through Shor's polynomial-time factorization algorithm. The Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL) attack paradigm further amplifies this threat by enabling adversaries to archive ciphertext today for future quantum-enabled decryption, rendering long-term data confidentiality immediately at risk. While the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized post-quantum cryptographic standards ML-KEM (FIPS 203) and ML-DSA (FIPS 204) in August 2024, their practical integration into complete application-level communication systems remains a largely unaddressed research gap. This paper presents QuantumShield, a hybrid post-quantum secure peer-to-peer communication platform that integrates ML-KEM-768 for quantum-safe key encapsulation, ML-DSA-65 for authenticated digital signatures, and AES-256-GCM for high-throughput symmetric encryption. Our primary research contribution is a rigorous empirical analysis of PQC integration overhead in a real-world communication pipeline, quantifying latency, key size, and security trade-offs against classical RSA-2048 and ECC-256 baselines under controlled experimental conditions. Experimental evaluation across 1,000 iterations demonstrates that ML-KEM-768 encapsulation completes in 2.8 ± 0.2 ms compared to 4.1 ± 0.3 ms for ECDH key agreement — a 32% latency reduction while providing NIST Level 3 post-quantum security. The complete secure transfer pipeline processes 1 MB files in under 22 ms on commodity hardware. The system further provides interactive cryptographic visualization, adversary threat modeling, tamper detection simulation, and a hybrid migration framework demonstrating practical transition from classical to post-quantum infrastructure. QuantumShield establishes that quantum-safe communication is not merely theoretical but deployable today with negligible performance compromise.