Paper 2026/036
AKE Protocol Combining PQC and QKD
, Orange (France)Abstract
With the advent of quantum computing, which threatens the very foundations of classical cryptography, several authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocols have been proposed, combining classical and post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, and a quantum key distribution (QKD) sub-protocol. The goal being to associate the claimed information theoretic security of QKD, and the security based upon computational assumptions of classical and post-quantum cryptography. To our knowledge, in existing security proofs of such hybrid AKE protocols, the QKD phase is treated as a black box and the impact of establishing the output quantum key appears similar as setting a symmetric key beforehand at the two communicating parties. In this paper, we describe an hybrid AKE protocol and a security model that captures multiple security properties. Our security analysis integrates the security loss induced by the QKD phase as well as that of implied by the classical and post-quantum cryptographic algorithms involved in the protocol.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Cryptographic protocols
- Publication info
- A major revision of an IACR publication in CIC 2026
- DOI
- 10.62056/aesgsgbmo
- Keywords
- Authenticated key exchangePost-quantum cryptographyQuantum key distributionSecurity model
- Contact author(s)
- loic ferreira @ orange com
- History
- 2026-06-18: revised
- 2026-01-09: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2026/036
- License
-
CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2026/036,
author = {Loïc Ferreira},
title = {{AKE} Protocol Combining {PQC} and {QKD}},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2026/036},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.62056/aesgsgbmo},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/036}
}
