A hybrid key exchange protocol combining DHKE with Learning With Errors (LWE), a lattice-based post-quantum primitive that provides authentication via a Public Key Infrastructure together with CRYSTALS-Dilithium digital signature, resilience against MITM attacks, and robustness against classical and quantum threats.
The necessity of a secure key exchange protocol arises from the critical need to establish encrypted communication over an untrusted network. Over time, a multitude of key exchange mechanisms have been developed to counteract adversarial threats. The Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol (DHKE) is one of the most widely used protocols for symmetric key sharing. However, this protocol exhibits certain inherent limitations that attackers may exploit. It lacks authentication mechanism and is susceptible to Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks and quantum attacks. To mitigate these vulnerabilities, we have designed a hybrid key exchange protocol combining DHKE with Learning With Errors (LWE), a lattice-based post-quantum primitive. This proposed protocol provides authentication via a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) together with CRYSTALS-Dilithium digital signature, resilience against MITM attacks, and robustness against classical and quantum threats. We have done a security analysis using the Dolev-Yao threat model, extended to quantum-equipped attackers, and showed that the protocol achieves mutual authentication, session key secrecy, and forward secrecy under the hardness of LWE and DHKE. Lastly, we provided detailed parameter recommendations based on NIST standards and shed light on side-channel attacks.
A. K. M. Fakhrul Hossain· SUST Journal of Science and...· 0 citations
: Secure UAV communication requires robust, quantum-resistant protocols that are resilient to physical capture and operate under severe resource constraints. This work identifies critical vulnerabilities—including desynchronization, capture attacks, and lack of forward secrecy—in the LIGKYX protocol(Xia et al., 2024). To address these flaws, we propose a novel protocol that replaces LIGKYX’s ECC with Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) for device authentication and integrates the post-quantum Kyber mechanism for key establishment. Enhanced with authenticated encryption and nonce-based key derivation, our protocol is formally verified (using BAN logic) to resist replay, impersonation, desynchronization, and capture attacks. Performance analysis confirms its lower computational and communication overhead, making it suitable for constrained UAV networks.
Mohammed Zitouni, Hicham Hameurlaine, Mustapha Bensalah· International Conference on...· 0 citations
With the advent of quantum computers, traditional key exchange mechanisms are under threat, necessitating the development of new methods. Recently, Module-Lattice-Based Key Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM) has been standardized as a quantum-safe key exchange method. Another emerging technique is Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and its most famous protocol, BB84, which relies on the principles of quantum physics to exchange key information. Both techniques are considered secure against attacks by quantum computers, but their security is based on different principles. However, both key exchange types include a statistical component which, if an attacker were lucky, could allow circumventing these underlying hard problems. In this paper, we suggest that as a key exchange mechanism, BB84 should be run with security parameters comparable to those of ML-KEM, and analyze performance implications if this choice is taken. We illustrate the impact by estimating the number of raw bits required to generate a 256-bit symmetric key using BB84 and assessing the resulting performance implications. We further show how the BB84 finite-size security parameter can be chosen such that the post-processing failure probability is of the same order as the cumulative decapsulation-failure probability of ML-KEM. According to our results, the security parameter in BB84 should be at most 2−75.8 if statistical failure probability comparable to the ML-KEM decapsulation-failure target is desired. These findings offer general guidelines for BB84 parameter selection, with hybrid protocol design representing one potential application context.
Sara Nikula, Mari Muurman· Cryptography· 0 citations
Performance evaluations demonstrate that the proposed lightweight anonymous group authentication scheme outperforms existing comparable schemes in terms of computational cost, communication overhead, and dynamic group management efficiency, demonstrating its potential for resource-constrained IoT environments, pending further validation on real hardware platforms.
Huanjie Zhang, Yang Chen, Shenghao Chen et al.· Italian National Conference...· 0 citations
The paper addresses entity authentication in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems as a decisive condition of their practical security. It is shown that the information-theoretic security of quantum key agreement does not eliminate the need to authenticate the communicating parties: an unauthenticated classical channel leaves the system exposed to the man-in-the-middle attack, since the eavesdropper can run independent QKD instances with each party and reconcile two keys under full control. Existing authentication methods are analysed and classified by the underlying cryptographic primitive: symmetric schemes based on Wegman–Carter universal hashing, pre-shared and fixed keys, public-key infrastructure, two-way authentication, quantum entity/identity authentication, and zero-knowledge proofs. For each class the operating principle, advantages and limitations are determined, with emphasis on key management, scalability and trust distribution. It is established that symmetric and quantum-layer methods rely on pre-shared secrets with a quadratic growth of key material, public-key infrastructure introduces a single trust bottleneck and quantum-vulnerable primitives, while existing zero-knowledge authentication schemes are quantum and bound to the physical layer or solve network properties other than identity. A comparative analysis reveals an unresolved scientific gap: the absence of a scalable entity-authentication method that simultaneously provides non-disclosure of the secret, quantum resistance, sub-quadratic scalability and minimisation of trust assumptions. On this basis, a prospective research direction is substantiated – the construction of entity-authentication methods based on post-quantum zero-knowledge proofs operating over the classical control plane of scalable QKD networks. The requirements for such a method are formulated, and its compatibility with formal QKD security proofs is discussed.
Y. Kotukh, M. V. Korobchynskyi, V. Kozlovskyi et al.· Radiotekhnika· 0 citations
The Secure Hardware Extension (SHE) provides crucial functionalities such as error-detection, authorization, and authentication of messages exchanged between Electronic Control Units (ECUs) over the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus with the help of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptographic cores. However, the security guarantees of SHE can be entirely compromised if an adversary with physical access to the vehicle extracts the secret key using power or electromagnetic side-channel measurements. While countermeasures like Threshold Implementation (TI) and Domain-Oriented Masking (DOM) offer robust protection, they are impractical for SHE due to the stringent resource constraints and real-time safety requirements of automotive systems. To address this critical vulnerability, this article explores the concept of re-keying, utilizing two rounds of AES hardware as a lightweight key derivation function. This approach eliminates the need for additional key exchanges between the sender and receiver. Our experimental results, supported by theoretical analysis, indicate that re-keying every 10 encryptions provides a practical and secure solution that limits the effectiveness of side-channel attacks; leakage analysis performed on over 1,000,000 electromagnetic (EM) traces for this configuration revealed no detectable leakage. These findings are supported by real-world side-channel attack experiments conducted on a prototype implemented on the Cora-Z7 platform, built on Xilinx’s Zynq-7000 system featuring a single or dual-core 667 MHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor and Artix-7 FPGA. The proposed lightweight architecture, named LISHARK, maintains the same area footprint as a standalone AES core, making it significantly more efficient compared to TI and DOM. Measurements show that when integrated with the Secure Onboard Communication (SecOC) protocol, the design achieves end-to-end message authentication in approximately 90 microseconds, well within the industry-standard threshold of 10 milliseconds.
Soumi Chatterjee, Siddhartha Chowdhury, Urbi Chatterjee et al.· ACM Transactions on Embedded...· 0 citations
We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads.
See our Cookie Policy.
