Methodology for the Seamless Integration of Post-quantum Hybrid Cryptographic Solutions into TLS-secured RESTful APIs in cloud Environments

Abstract

At the dawn of the rise of quantum systems, the scientific community is faced with a real security problem of TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols, a central element for secure exchanges in the cloud. Indeed, the security basis of the TLS protocol is the use of classical asymmetric cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and ECC, which have become vulnerable to the factorization and discrete logarithm resolution power of the Shor and Grover algorithms by exploiting the strength of quantum systems. This has a direct impact on RESTful APIs in cloud environments because their security also depends mainly on TLS. In order to remedy this problem, the research community has turned to so-called post-quantum cryptographic solutions. It is important to make the nuance because these solutions are rightly called post-quantum are not because they are based on the strength of quantum, but because they appear in an era where quantum systems already exist, hence the post-quantum therm. These solutions are of course able to resist attacks using the force of quantum calculations. However, its integration into cloud infrastructures remains a major challenge due to the compatibility constraints and performance requirements that cloud services require, including latency and scalability. In order to keep the performance level of cloud services almost intact, the article proposes a methodology for integrating hybrid cryptographic solutions within TLS-secured RESTful APIs. It is a combinatorial solution of classical algorithms such as X255119 and ECDSA which is an outgrowth of ECC and post-quantum systems such as Kyber768 and Dilithium at the TLS level without however modifying the structure of the application layer. The experiments demonstrate in this article that the hybrid solution perfectly keeps the security of exchanges robust while maintaining performance almost intact for cloud services requiring high availability.