Towards Post-Quantum Secure eSIM Provisioning Protocols

Harrison Banda; Hannes Bartz; Juliane Krämer; Michael Meyer; Vincent Quentin Ulitzsch

Paper 2026/1225

Towards Post-Quantum Secure eSIM Provisioning Protocols

Harrison Banda

, University of Regensburg

Hannes Bartz

, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Juliane Krämer

, University of Regensburg

Michael Meyer

, University of Regensburg

Vincent Quentin Ulitzsch

, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

The eSIM specification enables remote SIM provisioning without the need to hand out a physical SIM card. Instead of a physical SIM card, the subscriber downloads a SIM profile, which contains a subscriber's identity and authentication key material, to their embedded UICC, a discrete, embedded chip in the user's phone. This provisioning process is specified in the remote SIM provisioning (RSP) protocol and is secured through contemporary public-key cryptography. However, the potential advent of general-purpose quantum computers threatens the security of RSP. This paper provides a quantum threat analysis of the RSP protocol, considering both Harvest Now, Decrypt Later attacks and active quantum attacks. To alleviate this threat, this paper introduces PQC-RSP, a post quantum secure version of the RSP protocol. The main challenge we address is the introduction of key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs) into the RSP protocol, both in a PQC-only and hybrid version, and the security implications of this modification. We prove the security of PQC-RSP and review the performance overhead introduced through the usage of post quantum cryptography.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Cryptographic protocols
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Major revision. ACNS 2026
Keywords: post-quantum cryptography eSIM RSP security analysis Harvest Now Decrypt Later
Contact author(s): harrison banda @ ur de
hannes bartz @ dlr de
uliane kraemer @ ur de
michael1 meyer @ ur de
viniul @ mit edu
History: 2026-06-11: approved; 2026-06-10: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2026/1225
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2026/1225,
      author = {Harrison Banda and Hannes Bartz and Juliane Krämer and Michael Meyer and Vincent Quentin Ulitzsch},
      title = {Towards Post-Quantum Secure {eSIM} Provisioning Protocols},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2026/1225},
      year = {2026},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1225}
}