Post-Quantum Identity-Based TLS for 5G Service-Based Architecture and Cloud-Native Infrastructure

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rathi, Vipin Kumar, Chopra, Lakshya, Rajput, Nikhil Kumar
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866908811833376768
author Rathi, Vipin Kumar
Chopra, Lakshya
Rajput, Nikhil Kumar
author_facet Rathi, Vipin Kumar
Chopra, Lakshya
Rajput, Nikhil Kumar
contents Cloud-native application platforms and latency-sensitive systems such as 5G Core networks rely heavily on certificate-based Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and mutual TLS to secure service-to-service communication. While effective, this model introduces significant operational and performance overhead, which is further amplified in the post-quantum setting due to large certificates and expensive signature verification. In this paper, we present a certificate-free authentication framework for private distributed systems based on post-quantum Identity-Based Encryption(IBE). Our design replaces certificate and signature based authentication with identity-derived keys and identity-based key encapsulation, enabling mutually authenticated TLS connections without certificate transmission or validation. We describe an IBE-based replacement for private PKI, including identity lifecycle management, and show how it can be instantiated using a threshold Private Key Generator (T-PKG). We apply this framework to cloud-native application deployments and latency-sensitive 5G Core networks. In particular, we demonstrate how identity-based TLS integrates with the 5G Service-Based Architecture while preserving security semantics and 3GPP requirements, and we show how the same architecture can replace private PKI in Kubernetes, including its control plane, without disrupting existing trust domains or deployment models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_04238
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Post-Quantum Identity-Based TLS for 5G Service-Based Architecture and Cloud-Native Infrastructure
Rathi, Vipin Kumar
Chopra, Lakshya
Rajput, Nikhil Kumar
Cryptography and Security
Cloud-native application platforms and latency-sensitive systems such as 5G Core networks rely heavily on certificate-based Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and mutual TLS to secure service-to-service communication. While effective, this model introduces significant operational and performance overhead, which is further amplified in the post-quantum setting due to large certificates and expensive signature verification. In this paper, we present a certificate-free authentication framework for private distributed systems based on post-quantum Identity-Based Encryption(IBE). Our design replaces certificate and signature based authentication with identity-derived keys and identity-based key encapsulation, enabling mutually authenticated TLS connections without certificate transmission or validation. We describe an IBE-based replacement for private PKI, including identity lifecycle management, and show how it can be instantiated using a threshold Private Key Generator (T-PKG). We apply this framework to cloud-native application deployments and latency-sensitive 5G Core networks. In particular, we demonstrate how identity-based TLS integrates with the 5G Service-Based Architecture while preserving security semantics and 3GPP requirements, and we show how the same architecture can replace private PKI in Kubernetes, including its control plane, without disrupting existing trust domains or deployment models.
title Post-Quantum Identity-Based TLS for 5G Service-Based Architecture and Cloud-Native Infrastructure
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04238