Analysis of Post-Quantum Cryptography in User Equipment in 5G and Beyond

2025-07-22

AI Summary

Quantum computing poses an existential threat to classical public-key cryptography, necessitating urgent empirical evaluation of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) in realistic 5G wireless environments. This work presents the first end-to-end implementation and measurement of NIST-standardized PQC algorithms—ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SPHINCS+, and HQC—within TLS 1.3 on a realistic 5G simulation platform (Open5GS + UERANSIM), integrated via BoringSSL and liboqs. We systematically evaluate latency, computational resource overhead, and network payload impact during UE-to-UE communication. Results reveal clear practical boundaries: the ML-KEM/ML-DSA combination achieves optimal performance, meeting stringent low-latency requirements of 5G; conversely, SPHINCS+ and HQC incur prohibitive overhead, rendering them unsuitable for real-time secure communication. This study fills a critical gap in empirical PQC evaluation across the 5G protocol stack and provides foundational performance data to guide standardization and deployment decisions.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Applications of cryptography
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Responsible Web: Measurement, analysis, and circumvention of Web censorship

Abstract

The advent of quantum computing threatens the security of classical public-key cryptographic systems, prompting the transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). While PQC has been analyzed in theory, its performance in practical wireless communication environments remains underexplored. This paper presents a detailed implementation and performance evaluation of NIST-selected PQC algorithms in user equipment (UE) to UE communications over 5G networks. Using a full 5G emulation stack (Open5GS and UERANSIM) and PQC-enabled TLS 1.3 via BoringSSL and liboqs, we examine key encapsulation mechanisms and digital signature schemes across realistic network conditions. We evaluate performance based on handshake latency, CPU and memory usage, bandwidth, and retransmission rates, under varying cryptographic configurations and client loads. Our findings show that ML-KEM with ML-DSA offers the best efficiency for latency-sensitive applications, while SPHINCS+ and HQC combinations incur higher computational and transmission overheads, making them unsuitable for security-critical but time-sensitive 5G scenarios.

Problem

• Evaluates post-quantum cryptography in 5G user equipment
• Assesses performance of NIST-selected PQC algorithms in UE communications
• Compares efficiency of PQC schemes for latency-sensitive 5G applications

Innovation

• Implement PQC in 5G UE communications
• Use 5G emulation and PQC-enabled TLS
• Evaluate PQC algorithms for 5G efficiency