AmphiKey: A Dual-Mode Secure Authenticated Key Encapsulation Protocol for Smart Grid

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Shakib, Kazi Hassan, Hafeez, Muhammad Asfand, Munir, Arslan
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Shakib, Kazi Hassan
Hafeez, Muhammad Asfand
Munir, Arslan
author_facet Shakib, Kazi Hassan
Hafeez, Muhammad Asfand
Munir, Arslan
contents AmphiKey, a dual-mode post-quantum/traditional (PQ/T) hybrid authenticated key exchange mechanism (AKEM) has been designed to secure smart grid communications against both classical and quantum threats. AmphiKey offers two distinct operational modes within a single framework: an Authenticated Mode and a Deniable Mode. The Authenticated Mode employs a blackbox approach, combining ephemeral ML-KEM-768 and X25519 with long-term Raccoon DSA keys to provide forward secrecy and strong, non-repudiable authenticity. This design achieves "OR" confidentiality, where security holds if either of the KEMs is unbroken, and robust "AND" authenticity. For the signature operation, it leverages the 'masking-friendly' Raccoon digital signature (DSA), which is specifically designed for side-channel attack resistance, though this protection is localized to the signing key and does not provide deniability. In contrast, Deniable Mode provides deniable authentication, preserving privacy. The protocol used ML-KEM-768 (AKEM-1), Ephemeral X25519 (AKEM-2), Raccoon-based DSA (Rac) (compared performance to ML-DSA-65), and the Ascon cipher to deliver its security guarantees. Key contributions include providing a flexible protocol with enhanced security, optional deniability, and efficiency adapted to the diverse needs of the smart grid infrastructure. We present a comprehensive performance evaluation on a heterogeneous testbed featuring a powerful server and client (AMD Ryzen 5) and a resource-constrained client (Raspberry Pi). In efficient Deniable mode, the full handshake completes in 0.15 ms on the server and 0.41 ms on the Raspberry Pi client. In contrast, the Authenticated Mode is bottlenecked by the client-side signature generation; the handshake takes 4.8 ms for the Raspberry Pi client to initiate and 0.84 ms for the server to verify.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_01701
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AmphiKey: A Dual-Mode Secure Authenticated Key Encapsulation Protocol for Smart Grid
Shakib, Kazi Hassan
Hafeez, Muhammad Asfand
Munir, Arslan
Cryptography and Security
AmphiKey, a dual-mode post-quantum/traditional (PQ/T) hybrid authenticated key exchange mechanism (AKEM) has been designed to secure smart grid communications against both classical and quantum threats. AmphiKey offers two distinct operational modes within a single framework: an Authenticated Mode and a Deniable Mode. The Authenticated Mode employs a blackbox approach, combining ephemeral ML-KEM-768 and X25519 with long-term Raccoon DSA keys to provide forward secrecy and strong, non-repudiable authenticity. This design achieves "OR" confidentiality, where security holds if either of the KEMs is unbroken, and robust "AND" authenticity. For the signature operation, it leverages the 'masking-friendly' Raccoon digital signature (DSA), which is specifically designed for side-channel attack resistance, though this protection is localized to the signing key and does not provide deniability. In contrast, Deniable Mode provides deniable authentication, preserving privacy. The protocol used ML-KEM-768 (AKEM-1), Ephemeral X25519 (AKEM-2), Raccoon-based DSA (Rac) (compared performance to ML-DSA-65), and the Ascon cipher to deliver its security guarantees. Key contributions include providing a flexible protocol with enhanced security, optional deniability, and efficiency adapted to the diverse needs of the smart grid infrastructure. We present a comprehensive performance evaluation on a heterogeneous testbed featuring a powerful server and client (AMD Ryzen 5) and a resource-constrained client (Raspberry Pi). In efficient Deniable mode, the full handshake completes in 0.15 ms on the server and 0.41 ms on the Raspberry Pi client. In contrast, the Authenticated Mode is bottlenecked by the client-side signature generation; the handshake takes 4.8 ms for the Raspberry Pi client to initiate and 0.84 ms for the server to verify.
title AmphiKey: A Dual-Mode Secure Authenticated Key Encapsulation Protocol for Smart Grid
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01701