Post-quantum cryptography shows efficiency gains on IoT devices

Recent research indicates that post-quantum cryptography (PQC) can be more efficient than traditional methods on resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Testing on microcontrollers, such as the ESP32 and Raspberry Pi, demonstrated that utilizing ML-KEM-512 paired with ML-DSA-44 for Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 handshakes can be significantly faster than previous approaches. Specifically, these lattice-based methods completed handshakes up to 8.9 times faster on an ESP32 compared to X25519 with RSA-PSS.

This finding challenges the long-held assumption that elliptic curve key exchanges are more cost-effective for small devices than lattice-based post-quantum methods. While concerns regarding a ‘quantum apocalypse’—the potential for quantum computers to break classical encryption like RSA-2048—persist, experts suggest that building cryptographically useful quantum computers is likely at least a decade away. Current research into making quantum computing practical focuses on error mitigation and parallel processing, but industrial-scale applications for cryptanalysis remain a long-term prospect.