International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology (IJISRT)
Development of the PQC-Benchmark Algorithm for Evaluating the Performance of Post-Quantum Cryptographic Algorithms in Digital Banking Transactions Compared with RSA, ECDH, and ECDSA-Based Cryptographic Configurations
The increasing sophistication of quantum computing presents significant challenges to the long-term security, computational efficiency, and operational resilience of digital banking infrastructures that rely on conventional public-key cryptographic algorithms. Although Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH), and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) remain widely established cryptographic mechanisms, their underlying mathematical assumptions are vulnerable to sufficiently powerful quantum computers. Recent standardization of ModuleLattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM), Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (ML-DSA), and Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (SLH-DSA) creates opportunities for quantum-resistant financial transaction security, although computational overhead, transmission requirements, and deployment scalability remain important engineering considerations.
The increasing sophistication of quantum computing presents significant challenges to the long-term security, computational efficiency, and operational resilience of digital banking infrastructures that rely on conventional public-key cryptographic algorithms. Although Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH), and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) remain widely established cryptographic mechanisms, their underlying mathematical assumptions are vulnerable to sufficiently powerful quantum computers. Recent standardization of ModuleLattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM), Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (ML-DSA), and Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (SLH-DSA) creates opportunities for quantum-resistant financial transaction security, although computational overhead, transmission requirements, and deployment scalability remain important engineering considerations.
The advent of scalable quantum computing poses a significant threat to the cryptographic foundations of digital trade, cross-border payment systems, and global financial infrastructures. Current public-key cryptosystems—widely used in digital transactions, payment authorization, and inter-bank messaging—are vulnerable to quantum-based attacks such as those enabled by Shor’s algorithm. This review analyzes the emerging domain of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and quantum-resilient protocol design within the context of international trade and payment gateways. Key themes include the migration of legacy payment and settlement protocols to quantum-resistant formats, the integration of lattice-based key encapsulation mechanisms, stateless hash-based digital signatures, and hybrid classical–quantum key distribution (QKD) within financial messaging standards, as well as system-level design considerations for trade platforms that emphasize forward secrecy, long-term data confidentiality, and regulatory compliance across jurisdictions. By synthesizing standardization efforts and industry transition case studies, this paper offers a roadmap for financial institutions, technology vendors, and regulatory bodies to orchestrate a coordinated shift toward quantum-safe digital trade ecosystems.
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 exponential advancement of quantum computing poses unprecedented threats to conventional cryptographic systems employed in banking infrastructure. This paper presents a comprehensive quantum-enhanced cryptographic framework that integrates post-quantum algorithms with distributed ledger technologies to establish resilient financial security systems. Through systematic analysis of lattice-based cryptography, hash-based signatures, and multivariate cryptographic schemes, this research demonstrates significant improvements in computational security while maintaining operational efficiency. The proposed framework achieves 99.7% security resilience against quantum attacks while reducing transaction processing overhead by 23% compared to traditional RSA-based systems. Experimental validation across simulated banking environments reveals enhanced performance metrics in key generation, digital signatures, and secure communication protocols. The integration of quantum-resistant algorithms with blockchain-based consensus mechanisms provides a robust foundation for future-proof banking security architectures.
Quantum computing represents one of the most disruptive technological advancements of the 21st century, with profound implications for modern cryptographic systems. Traditional digital signature algorithms—such as RSA, DSA, and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)—derive their security from mathematical problems like integer factorization and discrete logarithms, which are computationally infeasible for classical computers. However, the advent of quantum algorithms, particularly Shor’s and Grover’s algorithms, poses a direct threat to these cryptographic assumptions by drastically reducing the time required to solve such problems. This development renders existing Digital Signature infrastructures potentially obsolete once large-scale quantum computers become operational. To counter this threat, researchers have proposed a range of post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms, including lattice-based, hash-based, and multivariate polynomial-based signature schemes, which are designed to resist quantum attacks. This paper critically examines the extent of quantum vulnerability in current Digital Signature systems and evaluates the comparative performance, efficiency, and security trade-offs of post-quantum alternatives. The study aims to provide a structured understanding of the ongoing transition toward quantum-resistant digital authentication and to propose a roadmap for secure implementation in future cryptographic environments.
Abstract—The advent of fault-tolerant Cryptanalytically Relevant Quantum Computers (CRQCs) presents an existential threat to modern information security. Shor's polynomial-time quantum algorithm renders widely deployed public-key cryptographic primitives—including RSA, Diffie-Hellman (DH), and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECDH/ECDSA)—completely vulnerable to private key derivation. Furthermore, 'Harvest Now, Decrypt Later' (HNDL) adversarial campaigns actively intercept and store encrypted enterprise telemetry today, anticipating future quantum decryption capabilities. In response, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its primary Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards in FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA). However, transitioning complex enterprise IT ecosystems to quantum-resistant primitives introduces severe architectural and computational disruptions: public key and signature sizes increase by several orders of magnitude, cryptographic handshake latencies escalate, network packets experience Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) fragmentation, and legacy Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) lack microarchitectural support for lattice-based polynomial arithmetic. This paper provides an exhaustive, mathematically grounded technical survey and architectural roadmap for enterprise PQC migration. We formalize the Module Learning with Errors (M-LWE) and Module Short Integer Solution (M-SIS) hardness foundations, evaluate hybrid classical/post-quantum cryptographic transition models across standard transport protocols (TLS 1.3, IKEv2/IPsec, SSH), and formulate an enterprise Crypto-Agility Maturity Model. Furthermore, we construct an empirical enterprise testbed measuring throughput, connection establishment latency, memory footprints, and packet fragmentation across legacy and quantum-resistant suites. Our results show that while ML-KEM-768 achieves microsecond-level encapsulation, its 1,088-byte ciphertext expands TLS ClientHello payloads into multiple TCP segments under constrained networks. Finally, we establish open research directions in post-quantum identity federations, stateful hash signature tracking, and hardware-accelerated polynomial arithmetic. Index Terms—Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), Crypto-Agility, TLS 1.3, Lattice-Based Cryptography, Harvest Now Decrypt Later, Hardware Security Modules (HSM), Enterprise Migration.
The rapid advancements in quantum computing pose a significant threat to traditional cryptographic protocols, endangering the security of financial transactions and sensitive business data. Existing encryption mechanisms, such as RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman, rely on mathematical problems that quantum algorithms, particularly Shor's algorithm, can efficiently solve. As financial institutions and enterprises increasingly adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for data-driven decision-making and cybersecurity, the need for quantum-resistant cryptographic protocols becomes paramount. This study explores the evolution of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and its implications for securing financial transactions and business data in the AI era. Post-quantum cryptographic algorithms are designed to withstand quantum attacks while maintaining efficiency and scalability for real-world applications. Lattice-based cryptography, code-based encryption, hash-based signatures, and multivariate polynomial cryptosystems are among the leading PQC approaches. Lattice-based schemes, such as CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, offer robust security guarantees and are actively being standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Additionally, hash-based signatures, such as XMSS and SPHINCS+, provide strong resistance against quantum threats while ensuring long-term data integrity. The integration of AI into financial systems necessitates quantum-resistant security mechanisms to protect sensitive business data from cyber threats. AI-driven fraud detection, transaction authentication, and anomaly detection systems must incorporate PQC to prevent unauthorized access and mitigate quantum-enabled attacks. Secure communication protocols, including TLS and blockchain-based financial networks, require quantum-safe encryption to maintain data confidentiality and integrity. Despite the promising advancements in PQC, challenges such as computational overhead, key size expansion, and backward compatibility with classical systems remain. Transitioning to quantum-resistant cryptography requires a phased approach, incorporating hybrid encryption models that combine classical and post-quantum algorithms. This study underscores the urgency of adopting PQC to safeguard financial transactions and business data in the AI-driven digital economy.