PQC-LEO: An Evaluation Framework for Post-Quantum Cryptographic Algorithms

2025-11-12

International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems and Applications

AI Summary

This work addresses the urgent need to evaluate post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms on real hardware to inform deployment decisions in light of quantum computing threats to current public-key cryptosystems. To this end, we present PQC-LEO, the first framework enabling automated, cross-architecture benchmarking of leading PQC candidates. Using PQC-LEO, we systematically quantify computational overhead and communication efficiency across x86 and ARM platforms. Our experiments reveal that high-security-level PQC schemes incur significantly higher performance penalties on ARM architectures compared to x86, underscoring the critical role of hardware-software co-adaptation in practical PQC adoption. The framework provides a reproducible and extensible empirical foundation to guide standardized algorithm selection and optimization for diverse computing environments.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Search and Optimization: Learning to Search
• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Applications of cryptography
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web

Abstract

Advances in quantum computing threaten digital communication security by undermining the foundations of current public-key cryptography through Shor's quantum algorithm. This has driven the development of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), a new set of algorithms resistant to quantum attacks. While NIST has standardised several PQC schemes, challenges remain in their adoption. This paper introduces the PQC-LEO framework, a benchmarking suite designed to automate the evaluation of PQC computational and networking performance across x86 and ARM architectures. A proof-of-concept evaluation was conducted to demonstrate the framework's capabilities and highlight its application in supporting ongoing research on the adoption of PQC algorithms. The results show that there is a greater performance reduction in implementing PQC methods with higher security on ARM architectures than on the x86 architecture.

Problem

• Post-Quantum Cryptography
• Performance Evaluation
• ARM Architecture
• x86 Architecture
• Quantum Computing Threat

Innovation

• Post-Quantum Cryptography
• Benchmarking Framework
• Performance Evaluation
• ARM Architecture
• x86 Architecture