Paper 2026/1581
Post-Quantum Internet Key Exchange via Authenticated Forward-Secure KEM
, Fudan University, Fudan University, Henan Key Laboratory of Network Cryptography TechnologyAbstract
In this work, we present a new framework for signature-free, post-quantum secure authenticated key exchange (AKE) that simultaneously satisfies: (1) exchanging at most two standard ciphertexts of a key encapsulation mechanism (KEM); (2) computational symmetry; (3) perfect forward secrecy (PFS); (4) strong resilience to secret-state exposure; (5) strong resistance to decryption-error attacks; (6) admitting instantiations based on the native structure of \textsf{ML-KEM} under the \textsf{MLWE} assumption; and (7) provable security in both the random oracle model (ROM) and the quantum-accessible random oracle model (QROM) under the post-id $\mathsf{eCK}\mbox{-}\mathsf{PFS}$ framework. This resolves several fundamental open questions in the literature. The core technical building block is a new cryptographic primitive, called an \emph{authenticated forward-secure} KEM (AFS-KEM), which unifies authentication and forward secrecy within a single KEM abstraction and may be of independent interest.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Cryptographic protocols
- Publication info
- A major revision of an IACR publication in CRYPTO 2026
- Keywords
- Post-quantumInternet key exchangeAFS-KEMQROMML-KEM
- Contact author(s)
-
ylzhao @ fudan edu cn
bmzhou22 @ m fudan edu cn
hdjiang13 @ 163 com - History
- 2026-08-14: revised
- 2026-08-03: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2026/1581
- License
-
CC BY-NC-ND
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2026/1581,
author = {Yunlei Zhao and Biming Zhou and Zhixiang Zhao and Yifan Dong and Cheng Huang and Haodong Jiang},
title = {Post-Quantum Internet Key Exchange via Authenticated Forward-Secure {KEM}},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2026/1581},
year = {2026},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1581}
}
