Master’s Thesis Defense at the College of Information Technology on Post-Quantum Encryption Techniques to Enhance IoT Network Security

Duha Fadill Abbas
The Department of Information Networks at the College of Information Technology, University of Babylon, witnessed the defense of the Master’s thesis submitted by Laith Haider Mahdi, entitled “A Proposed Lightweight Post-Quantum Encryption Technique to Enhance Internet of Things Network Security,” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Al-Harith Abdul Karim Abdullah. The defense was held in a rigorous academic atmosphere that reflected the advanced scientific level of the research and its significance at the intersection of cybersecurity, Internet of Things technologies, and modern cryptographic approaches in the era of quantum computing.

The thesis highlighted the rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and their increasing role in healthcare, industry, smart cities, and daily life, alongside the accompanying security challenges. These challenges arise particularly because most IoT nodes operate under strict resource constraints, including limited memory capacity, processing power, and energy availability. The study also addressed the limitations of traditional public-key cryptographic systems such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography, which are expected to become vulnerable with the advancement of quantum computing and its ability to break classical encryption schemes using algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm.

The researcher proposed an advanced framework based on a hybrid encryption solution that combines CRYSTALS-Kyber-512, a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, with the lightweight authenticated encryption scheme ASCON-128, supported by HKDF-SHA256 for secure session key derivation and separation. The system was designed within a client–server architecture that simulates common IoT applications, enabling multiple nodes to operate simultaneously through the TCP protocol, thereby enhancing communication efficiency and security in realistic deployment environments.

The study concluded that the proposed hybrid strategy provides a practical balance between operational efficiency and resistance to post-quantum threats, making it well-suited for real-world IoT environments. The proposed approach contributes to establishing more secure communications in the quantum computing era without compromising the limited resources of smart devices.