Post-Quantum Cryptography and Quantum-Safe Security: A Comprehensive Survey

2025-10-12

AI Summary

The NIST post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization marks a critical transition to deployment, yet a significant gap persists between standardized specifications and practical engineering implementation. This paper systematically constructs a comprehensive technical framework for quantum-resistant migration, covering security analysis, standardization status, performance, and communication overhead of six major PQC families: lattice-based, code-based, hash-based, multivariate, isogeny-based, and MPC-in-the-Head schemes. It further investigates hardware acceleration (AVX2/FPGA/ASIC), protocol integration (TLS/PKI), constrained-environment deployment, and synergies with QKD/QRNG. Innovatively, the work proposes an implementation pathway centered on cryptographic agility and hybrid transition, augmented with side-channel mitigation and domain-specific guidance—bridging the standard–implementation–operation divide. It delivers empirically grounded recommendations for algorithm selection, system integration, and migration strategy, while identifying parameter agility and leakage-resilient implementations as key future research directions.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Search and Optimization: Non-convex Optimization
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring

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: Consent frameworks and practices on the web

Abstract

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is moving from evaluation to deployment as NIST finalizes standards for ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA. This survey maps the space from foundations to practice. We first develop a taxonomy across lattice-, code-, hash-, multivariate-, isogeny-, and MPC-in-the-Head families, summarizing security assumptions, cryptanalysis, and standardization status. We then compare performance and communication costs using representative, implementation-grounded measurements, and review hardware acceleration (AVX2, FPGA/ASIC) and implementation security with a focus on side-channel resistance. Building upward, we examine protocol integration (TLS, DNSSEC), PKI and certificate hygiene, and deployment in constrained and high-assurance environments (IoT, cloud, finance, blockchain). We also discuss complementarity with quantum technologies (QKD, QRNGs) and the limits of near-term quantum computing. Throughout, we emphasize crypto-agility, hybrid migration, and evidence-based guidance for operators. We conclude with open problems spanning parameter agility, leakage-resilient implementations, and domain-specific rollout playbooks. This survey aims to be a practical reference for researchers and practitioners planning quantum-safe systems, bridging standards, engineering, and operations.

Problem

• Surveying post-quantum cryptography standards and implementation security considerations
• Comparing performance costs and hardware acceleration for quantum-safe algorithms
• Examining protocol integration and deployment challenges across various environments

Innovation

• Standardized post-quantum cryptography algorithms for deployment
• Hardware acceleration and side-channel resistant implementations
• Protocol integration and hybrid migration strategies