A Practical Performance Benchmark of Post-Quantum Cryptography Across Heterogeneous Computing Environments

As the era of quantum computing approaches, the fundamental cryptographic primitives securing global communications face a paradigm shift. With the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalizing new standards, the industry must urgently address the vulnerabilities of legacy systems. The imminent advent of CRQCs (Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers) poses an existential threat to the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) underpinning the global digital economy. Classical algorithms such as RSA and ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) are vulnerable to polynomial-time cryptanalysis via Shor’s algorithm. This study investigates the HNDL (Harvest Now, Decrypt Later) threat model and evaluates the resilience of NIST-standardized PQC (Post-Quantum Cryptography) algorithms: ML-KEM and ML-DSA. Utilizing a high-performance Fortinet networking environment, we experimentally validate that "Hybrid Mode" IPsec VPNs can achieve quantum resistance with negligible performance degradation, offering a viable migration path for enterprise infrastructure. Specifically, we benchmark the trade-offs between PQC’s larger key sizes and network latency, demonstrating that the overhead remains within acceptable operational thresholds. Implementing hybrid protocols provides a critical transition mechanism, allowing organizations to secure long-term data confidentiality against retrospective decryption while preserving interoperability with legacy systems.

Information security is a fundamental and urgent issue in the digital transformation era. Cryptographic techniques and digital signatures have been applied to protect and authenticate relevant information. However, with the advent of quantum computers and quantum algorithms, classical cryptographic techniques have been in danger of collapsing because quantum computers can solve complex problems in polynomial time. Stemming from that risk, researchers worldwide have stepped up research on post-quantum algorithms to resist attack by quantum computers. In this review paper, we survey studies in recent years on post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and provide statistics on the number and content of publications, including a literature overview, detailed explanations of the most common methods so far, current implementation status, implementation comparisons, and discussion on future work. These studies focused on essential public cryptography techniques and digital signature schemes, and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a competition to select the best candidate for the expected standard. Recent studies have practically implemented the public key encryption/key encapsulation mechanism (PKE/KEM) and digital signature schemes on different hardware platforms and applied various optimization measures based on other criteria. Along with the increasing number of scientific publications, the recent trend of PQC research is increasingly evident and is the general trend in the cryptography industry. The movement opens up a promising avenue for researchers in public key cryptography and digital signatures, especially on algorithms selected by NIST.

Advances in quantum computers may pose a significant threat to existing public-key encryption methods, which are crucial to the current infrastructure of cyber security. Both RSA and ECDSA, the two most widely used security algorithms today, may be (in principle) solved by the Shor algorithm in polynomial time due to its ability to efficiently solve the discrete logarithm problem, potentially making present infrastructures insecure against a quantum attack. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reacted with the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization process to develop and optimize a series of post-quantum algorithms (PQAs) based on difficult mathematical problems that are not susceptible to being solved by Shor’s algorithm. Whilst high-powered computers can run these PQAs efficiently, further work is needed to investigate and benchmark the performance of these algorithms on lower-powered (constrained) devices and the ease with which they may be integrated into existing protocols such as TLS. This paper provides quantitative benchmark and handshake performance data for the most recently selected PQAs from NIST, tested on a Raspberry Pi 4 device to simulate today’s IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and provides quantitative comparisons with previous benchmarking data on a range of constrained systems. CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium are shown to be the most efficient PQAs in the key encapsulation and signature algorithms, respectively, with Falcon providing the optimal TLS handshake size.

The rapid advancement in quantum technology has initiated a new round of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) related exploration. The key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) Saber is an important module lattice-based PQC, which has been selected as one of the PQC finalists in the ongoing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standardization process. On the other hand, however, efficient hardware implementation of KEM Saber has not been well covered in the literature. In this paper, therefore, we propose a novel cyclic-row oriented processing (CROP) strategy for efficient implementation of the key arithmetic operation of KEM Saber, i.e., the polynomial multiplication. The proposed work consists of three layers of interdependent efforts: (i) first of all, we have formulated the main operation of KEM Saber into desired mathematical forms to be further developed into CROP based algorithms, i.e., the basic version and the advanced higher-speed version; (ii) then, we have followed the proposed CROP strategy to innovatively transfer the derived two algorithms into desired polynomial multiplication structures with the help of a series of algorithm-architecture co-implementation techniques; (iii) finally, detailed complexity analysis and implementation results have shown that the proposed polynomial multiplication structures have better area-time complexities than the state-of-the-art solutions. Specifically, the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation results show that the proposed design, e.g., the basic version has at least less 11.2% area-delay product (ADP) than the best competing one (Cyclone V device). The proposed high-performance polynomial multipliers offer not only efficient operation for output results delivery but also possess low-complexity feature brought by CROP strategy. The outcome of this work is expected to provide useful references for further development and standardization process of KEM Saber.

Recently, a fast and secure hash function SFHA - 256 has been proposed and claimed as more secure and as having a better performance than the SHA - 256. In this paper an improved version of SFHA - 256 is proposed and analyzed using two parameters, namely the avalanche effect and uniform deviation. The experimental results and further analysis ensures the performance of the newly proposed and improved SFHA-256. From the analysis it can be concluded that the newly proposed algorithm is more secure, efficient, and practical.

This research paper evaluates the feasibility of cold boot attacks on the Supersingular Isogeny Key Encapsulation (SIKE) mechanism. This key encapsulation mechanism has been included in the list of alternate candidates of the third round of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time this scheme is assessed in the cold boot attacks setting. In particular, our evaluation is focused on the reference implementation of this scheme. Furthermore, we present a dedicated key-recovery algorithm for SIKE in this setting and show that the key recovery algorithm works for all the parameter sets recommended for this scheme. Moreover, we compute the success rates of our key recovery algorithm through simulations and show the key recovery algorithm may reconstruct the SIKE secret key for any SIKE parameters for a fixed and small α=0.001 (the probability of a 0 to 1 bit-flipping) and varying values for β (the probability of a 1 to 0 bit-flipping) in the set {0.001,0.01,…,0.1}. Additionally, we show how to integrate a quantum key enumeration algorithm with our key-recovery algorithm to improve its overall performance.

In this work an NTT-based (Number Theoretic Transform) multiplier for code-based Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is presented, supporting Quasi Cyclic Low/Moderate-Density Parity-Check (QC LDPC/MDPC) codes. The cyclic matrix product, which is the fundamental operation required in this application, is treated as a polynomial product and adapted to the specific case of QC-MDPC codes proposed for Round 3 and 4 in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) competition for PQC. The multiplier is a fundamental component in both encryption and decryption, and the proposed solution leads to a flexible NTT-based multiplier, which can efficiently handle all types of required products, where the vectors have a length &#x2248;104 and can be moderately sparse. The proposed architecture is implemented using both Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technologies and, when compared with the best published results, it features a 10 times reduction of the encryption times with the area increased by 3 times. The proposed multiplier, incorporated in the encryption and decryption stages of a code-based PQC cryptosystem, leads to an improvement over the best published results between 3 to 10 times in terms of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$LC$ </tex-math></inline-formula> product (LUT times latency).

The growth of quantum computing reveals a series of significant threats to cryptographic systems known today, such as RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman, which are extremely important for Internet security, but are threatened by the increase in possible quantum attacks. The area of public and private key cryptography is vast. Therefore, this article addresses post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms and the challenges of implementing them in Internet of Things (IoT) devices, given the difficulty of application due to restricted resources, such as RAM and clock speed . To this end, we will discuss the need for standardization of algorithms considering low-resource IoT devices, prioritizing RAM over ROM, meeting the needs of low-memory devices, which are lighter. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has validated four cryptographic systems that are secure against quantum attacks. We analyze the implications of these systems on the infrastructure of current networks and will compare in detail these algorithms and their respective strengths, weaknesses, and trade-offs. We evaluate the feasibility of post-quantum encryption (PQC) algorithms in resource-constrained IoT devices using the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller. Three cryptographic schemes were implemented and compared.

Lattice-based cryptography is a novel approach to public key cryptography (PKC), of which the mathematical investigation (so far) resists attacks from quantum computers. By choosing a module learning with errors (MLWE) algorithm as the next standard, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) follows this approach. The multiplication of polynomials is the central bottleneck in the computation of lattice-based cryptography. Because PKC is mostly used to establish common secret keys, the focus is on compact area, power, and energy budget and, to a lesser extent, on throughput or latency. While most other work focuses on optimizing number theoretic transform (NTT)-based multiplications, in this article, we highly optimize a Toom–Cook-based multiplier. We demonstrate that a memory-efficient striding Toom–Cook with lazy interpolation results in a highly compact, low-power implementation, which, on top, enables a very regular memory access scheme. To demonstrate the efficiency, we integrate this multiplier into a Saber post-quantum accelerator, one of the four NIST finalists. Algorithmic innovation to reduce active memory, timely clock gating, and shift-add multiplier has helped to achieve 38% less power than state-of-the-art post-quantum cryptography (PQC) core, 4 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> less memory, 36.8% reduction in multiplier energy, and 118 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> reduction in active power with respect to state-of-the-art Saber accelerator (not silicon verified). This accelerator consumes 0.158- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text {mm}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> active area, which is the lowest reported to date despite the process disadvantages of the state-of-the-art designs.

Polynomial multiplication stands out as a highly demanding arithmetic process in the development of post-quantum cryptosystems. The importance of the number-theoretic transform (NTT) extends beyond post-quantum cryptosystems, proving valuable in enhancing existing security protocols such as digital signature schemes and hash functions. CRYSTALS-KYBER stands out as the sole public key encryption (PKE) algorithm chosen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in its third round selection, making it highly regarded as a leading post-quantum cryptography (PQC) solution. Faults have the potential to disrupt cryptographic systems, compromise data integrity, and enable side-channel attacks, making the incorporation of robust error detection mechanisms essential. This article introduces algorithm-level fault detection schemes in the NTT multiplication using Negative Wrapped Convolution ( NWC ) and the NTT tailored for Kyber Round 3, representing a significant enhancement compared with previous research. We evaluate this through the simulation of a fault model, ensuring that the conducted assessments accurately mirror the obtained results. Our fault detection scheme is designed to address both malicious fault injection attacks on Kyber and naturally occurring faults. Furthermore, we assessed the effectiveness of the proposed error detection scheme for the NTT implemented in both NWC and Kyber , using AMD/Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, HLS and processor-based approaches. In our FPGA implementation of NWC , the integration of our error detection approach achieves near-100% fault coverage with minimal area overhead and results in only a 12% increase in latency compared with the original hardware design. Finally, we attained an error detection ratio of nearly 100% for the NTT operation in Kyber , with a clock cycle overhead of 16% on the Cortex-A72 processor.

In the post-quantum era, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) processors are required to ensure quantum-secure communication and e-commerce with high throughput, while maintaining adequate flexibility to execute different crypto-primitives, such as key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) and digital signature (DS) at multiple security levels with evolving modifications. The PQC standards, which are based on multiple mathematical problems, will be available around the end of 2021 in NIST's PQC standardization (Fig. 34.1.1). Crypto-agility, coupled with new mathematical calculations, high computing complexity, and large memory consumption brings challenges to the design of PQC processors considering flexibility, throughput, and energy efficiency.

An image encryption scheme based on elliptic curve pseudo random and Advanced Encryption System

Rapid advances in quantum computing, together with the announcement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to define new standards for digitalsignature, encryption, and key-establishment protocols, have created significant interest in post-quantum cryptographic schemes. This paper introduces Kyber (part of CRYSTALS - Cryptographic Suite for Algebraic Lattices - a package submitted to NIST post-quantum standardization effort in November 2017), a portfolio of post-quantum cryptographic primitives built around a key-encapsulation mechanism (KEM), based on hardness assumptions over module lattices. Our KEM is most naturally seen as a successor to the NEWHOPE KEM (Usenix 2016). In particular, the key and ciphertext sizes of our new construction are about half the size, the KEM offers CCA instead of only passive security, the security is based on a more general (and flexible) lattice problem, and our optimized implementation results in essentially the same running time as the aforementioned scheme. We first introduce a CPA-secure public-key encryption scheme, apply a variant of the Fujisaki-Okamoto transform to create a CCA-secure KEM, and eventually construct, in a black-box manner, CCA-secure encryption, key exchange, and authenticated-key-exchange schemes. The security of our primitives is based on the hardness of Module-LWE in the classical and quantum random oracle models, and our concrete parameters conservatively target more than 128 bits of postquantum security.

The Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) which was published in the Federal Register on May 18, 2005, requires that calibration of mercury continuous emissions monitors (CEMs) be performed with NIST-traceable standards. Western Research Institute (WRI) is working closely with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to facilitate the development of the experimental criteria for a NIST traceability protocol for dynamic elemental mercury vapor generators. The traceability protocol will be written by EPA. Traceability will be based on the actual analysis of the output of each calibration unit at several concentration levels ranging from about 2-40 ug/m{sup 3}, and this analysis will be directly traceable to analyses by NIST using isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ID ICP/MS) through a chain of analyses linking the calibration unit in the power plant to the NIST ID ICP/MS. Prior to this project, NIST did not provide a recommended mercury vapor pressure equation or list mercury vapor pressure in its vapor pressure database. The NIST Physical and Chemical Properties Division in Boulder, Colorado was subcontracted under this project to study the issue in detail and to recommend a mercury vapormore » pressure equation that the vendors of mercury vapor pressure calibration units can use to calculate the elemental mercury vapor concentration in an equilibrium chamber at a particular temperature. As part of this study, a preliminary evaluation of calibration units from five vendors was made. The work was performed by NIST in Gaithersburg, MD and Joe Rovani from WRI who traveled to NIST as a Visiting Scientist.« less

FALCON is a signature selected for standardisation of the new Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) primitives by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). However, it remains a challenge to define efficient countermeasures against side-channel attacks (SCA) for this algorithm. FALCON is a lattice-based signature that relies on rational numbers, which is unusual in the cryptography field. Although recent work proposed a solution to mask the addition and the multiplication, some roadblocks remain, most noticeably, how to protect the floor function. In this work, we propose to complete the first existing tests of hardening FALCON against SCA. We perform the mathematical proofs of our methods as well as formal security proofs in the probing model by ensuring Multiple Input Multiple Output Strong Non-Interference (MIMO-SNI) security. We provide performances on a laptop computer of our gadgets as well as of a complete masked FALCON. We notice significant overhead in doing so and discuss the deployability of our method in a real-world context.