Post-Quantum Entropy as a Service for Embedded Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Blanco-Romero, Javier, Garcia-Niño, Yuri Melissa, Mendoza, Florina Almenares, Díaz-Sánchez, Daniel, García-Rubio, Carlos, Campo, Celeste
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Blanco-Romero, Javier
Garcia-Niño, Yuri Melissa
Mendoza, Florina Almenares
Díaz-Sánchez, Daniel
García-Rubio, Carlos
Campo, Celeste
author_facet Blanco-Romero, Javier
Garcia-Niño, Yuri Melissa
Mendoza, Florina Almenares
Díaz-Sánchez, Daniel
García-Rubio, Carlos
Campo, Celeste
contents Embedded cryptography stands or falls on entropy quality, yet small devices have few trustworthy sources and little tolerance for heavyweight protocols. We build a Quantum Entropy as a Service (QEaaS) system that moves QRNG-derived entropy from a Quantis device to ESP32-class clients over post-quantum-secured channels. On the server side, the design exposes two paths: direct quantum entropy through a custom OpenSSL provider and mixed entropy through the Linux system pool. On the client side, we extend libcoap's Zephyr support, integrate wolfSSL-based DTLS 1.3 into the CoAP stack, and add a BLAKE2s entropy pool that preserves the standard Zephyr extraction interface while introducing an injection API for server-provided entropy. Benchmarks on ESP32 hardware, targeting 100 iterations per configuration, show that ML-KEM-512 completes a DTLS 1.3 handshake in 313 ms on average without certificate verification, 35% faster than ECDHE P-256. Pairing ML-KEM-512 with ML-DSA-44 lowers the mean to 225 ms. Certificate verification adds roughly 194 ms for ECDSA but only 17 ms for ML-DSA-44, so the fully post-quantum configuration remains 63% faster than classical ECDHE P-256 with ECDSA even under full verification. Local BLAKE2s pool operations stay below 0.1 ms combined. On this platform, post-quantum key exchange and authentication are not only feasible; they are faster than the classical baseline.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_10274
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Post-Quantum Entropy as a Service for Embedded Systems
Blanco-Romero, Javier
Garcia-Niño, Yuri Melissa
Mendoza, Florina Almenares
Díaz-Sánchez, Daniel
García-Rubio, Carlos
Campo, Celeste
Cryptography and Security
Embedded cryptography stands or falls on entropy quality, yet small devices have few trustworthy sources and little tolerance for heavyweight protocols. We build a Quantum Entropy as a Service (QEaaS) system that moves QRNG-derived entropy from a Quantis device to ESP32-class clients over post-quantum-secured channels. On the server side, the design exposes two paths: direct quantum entropy through a custom OpenSSL provider and mixed entropy through the Linux system pool. On the client side, we extend libcoap's Zephyr support, integrate wolfSSL-based DTLS 1.3 into the CoAP stack, and add a BLAKE2s entropy pool that preserves the standard Zephyr extraction interface while introducing an injection API for server-provided entropy. Benchmarks on ESP32 hardware, targeting 100 iterations per configuration, show that ML-KEM-512 completes a DTLS 1.3 handshake in 313 ms on average without certificate verification, 35% faster than ECDHE P-256. Pairing ML-KEM-512 with ML-DSA-44 lowers the mean to 225 ms. Certificate verification adds roughly 194 ms for ECDSA but only 17 ms for ML-DSA-44, so the fully post-quantum configuration remains 63% faster than classical ECDHE P-256 with ECDSA even under full verification. Local BLAKE2s pool operations stay below 0.1 ms combined. On this platform, post-quantum key exchange and authentication are not only feasible; they are faster than the classical baseline.
title Post-Quantum Entropy as a Service for Embedded Systems
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10274