The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the looming risk of quantum computing necessitate a transition from traditional to quantum-resistant cryptographic standards. In this research article, we propose a novel hybrid crypto framework featuring an Adaptive Security Controller (ASC) that dynamically integrates a lightweight symmetric cipher, ChaCha20, with Kyber512 and a post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) scheme Dilithium to secure resource-constrained IoT environments. Unlike existing models that depend either on PQC or lightweight methods, our proposed framework dynamically switches encryption modes based on device constraints, energy availability, and trust levels—delivering a balance among strong security and manageable computational costs. To evaluate our framework, we performed multiple simulations with the Contiki-NG/COOJA platform over several IoT setups. Experimental results show that the proposed approach increase encryption speed by 37% as compared to existing RSA-based methods while keeping energy consumption within 12% of ChaCha20 configurations. In addition, the memory footprint remains under 25 KB RAM and 50 KB ROM, assure compatibility with microcontroller-class devices. By integrating quantum-resistant cryptography with lightweight performance enhancements and policy-based adaptability, our proposed framework guarantee better confidentiality, authenticity, and forward secrecy for next-generation IoT networks.
Singamaneni et al. (Thu,) studied this question.