Benchmarking Post-Quantum Cryptography in Lightweight Virtualization Environments on Embedded Hardware
Study finds container overhead is tiny for PQC, while algorithm choice can swing TLS energy by 1000x.
Researchers measured post-quantum signature and key-encapsulation primitives on embedded ARM under native execution, Docker, and a Unikraft unikernel on QEMU, covering about 70 parameter sets plus classical baselines. Container overhead was negligible for primitive computation; unikernel overhead was small for most families, moderate for BIKE, HQC, and MAYO (1.28–1.53×), and extreme for Falcon signing (17.8–19.2×). Per-operation energy tracked runtime. In TLS 1.3, environment differences faded once expensive post-quantum algorithms dominated, and algorithm choice changed handshake energy by up to three orders of magnitude.
- Docker added negligible cost to PQC primitive computation on embedded ARM.
- Falcon signing unikernel overhead reached 17.8–19.2× versus native.
- BIKE, HQC, and MAYO showed moderate unikernel overhead of 1.28–1.53×.
- Algorithm choice outweighed virtualization once post-quantum handshakes dominated.
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgPost-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is being deployed while embedded systems increasingly adopt lightweight virtualization for workload isolation and security. Both trends change performance characteristics, yet their interaction is not well understood.
By Nikolai Puch · arxiv.org
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