Enhancing crypto-interoperability resilience (CIR) by bridging the gap between classical and post-quantum cryptographic standards

With the emergence of real quantum computing technology, the quest to establish strong and secure post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) standards will only grow more urgent. These security standards protect data and communications against the groundbreaking capabilities of quantum computers that threaten to break many of today’s ubiquitous cryptographic systems. But there’s a major practical gap in PQC standards so they can work with current cryptographic infrastructure. In this paper we present the notion of Crypto-Interoperability Resilience (CIR), which is defined as that a cryptographic system possesses the ability to use post-quantum algorithms behind classical protected protocols in an interchangeable way and can transition from a classical secure mode to a quantum secure mode transparently while remaining secure. Integrating post-quantum (PQ) cryptographic algorithms into existing systems are difficult and comes with compatibility issues, performance limitations, and security concern from the insecure period while migrating, which this research addresses. We present holistic frameworks and methodologies for employing PQC standards in practice. These frameworks allow for stepwise adoption with no disruption of existing functionality and offers backward compatibility. We also create tools and protocols for improving CIR which efforts are performance-optimized and are designed to preserve security at a very high level as well.