Integration of Key Distribution and Cryptographic Technique to Achieve Quantum-resistant Authenticated Key Exchange in Transport Layer Security

The latest breakthroughs in quantum computing (QC) have made building secured and effective authorization systems against QC threats more imperative. Quantum key dissemination (KD) and post-quantum cryptographic techniques (PQCT) are pioneering security innovations that enable transmissions to withstand QC attacks. To realize quantumresistant authenticated key exchange (QRAKE), the above-stated methods must be integrated into a Transport Layer Security (TLS). This study presented and implemented two innovative hybrid techniques integrating KD and PQCT inside TLS to achieve QRAKE: Concatenation and Exclusive-OR (XOR). The Integrated Quantum KD and PQCTmaster concealment setup is the most time-consuming configuration, reaching 203 ms. This is mainly due to high times of Credential (40 ms), Server Key Transfer (12 ms), Client Key Transfer (10 ms) and End (120 ms). This serves as an indication of the trade-off present between the security of the cryptographic structure and the efficiency of the protocol.