Integrating Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) for End-to-End Security in Edge and IoT Environments

Advances in the field of interconnected consumer and IoT devices have highlighted the vulnerabilities of conventional cryptography to quantum computing. This paper presents a new hybrid model of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) that provides a high level of assurance in the edge-IoT ecosystems. The model being proposed combines lattice-based methods, i.e., Kyber-786 and Dilithium-III, and an AES-GCM layer model. Moreover, a trust and key negotiation mathematical analysis brings to fore the resistance of classical and quantum attackers with module-LWE and ring-LWE assumptions. The Python-based simulation proves that the suggested method increases the throughput by 18.6% and reduces the latency by 22.4% in comparison to the conventional methods. Also, there is a reduction of energy consumption by 41.7% with the use of a hybrid design caused by the hardware-accelerated two-polynomial operations and an optimized offloading. The analysis has shown that the proposed solution satisfies the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity with less than 7.3 ms overhead per transaction, and PQC can be used in IoT and consumer settings without compromising responsiveness and energy consumption.