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.
Full article241 words · extracted from arxiv.org · click to collapse
Post-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. To address this, we present a measurement study of PQC primitives on embedded-class ARM hardware under three execution environments with a shared software stack: native execution, a Docker container, and a Unikraft unikernel running under QEMU. We benchmark five signature and five key encapsulation mechanism families, and, for comparison, two classical algorithms each. We evaluate them using different parameter sets for a total of around 70 configurations, measuring execution time, memory, and energy per operation. To better gauge the impact on applications, we evaluated TLS 1.3 cipher combinations. We find that container overhead is negligible for primitive computation, whereas unikernel overhead depends on the algorithm. For most PQC families the overhead is negligible. A moderate overhead (1.28-1.53) arises in BIKE, HQC, and MAYO, and, above all, in Falcon signing (17.8-19.2). Per-operation energy closely tracks execution time in all environments. For TLS handshakes, container and unikernel clients need more time and energy per handshake, while all three environments converge once expensive post-quantum algorithms dominate the handshake. In these cases algorithm choice affects per-handshake energy by up to three orders of magnitude, far outweighing the environment. Overall, virtualization cost is inversely related to cryptographic cost: environment choice matters most for computationally cheap, standardized algorithms, while for expensive schemes, algorithm choice alone dominates performance.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.23902