A Step Towards Migration From Classical to Quantum Secure TLS Handshake Using PQC Primitives: Configurable to Multiple Security Levels

Abstract

The rapid development of quantum technology is now seen as a threat to the existing public-key cryptography utilized by the TLS protocol, such as RSA and ECDH. In response to the rapidly growing need for post-quantum cryptographic technologies, the present article aims to provide an implementation and analysis of a simplified TLS-like handshaking scheme based on the CRYSTALS-Kyber cryptographic primitive layer. The solution described herein implements Post-Quantum Security Level 1 as specified by the NIST, through the use of the Kyber512 parameter set, while being easily adaptable to Security Level 3 (Kyber768) and Security Level 5 (Kyber1024). The implementation includes an attempt to establish a quantum-resistant encryption connection between the client and server entities. The present work has flexibility to provide TLS like handshake for different security levels i.e., L1,L2,L3. Despite the increased size of the cryptographic objects generated (keys and ciphertexts), the experiment shows a practical implementation of the quantumsafe session-establishment process at the aforementioned security levels. Although the newly developed implementation scheme requires larger cryptographic artifacts than those used by classical TLS implementations, the experiment proves that there are practical solutions for building quantum-resistant sessions.