Enhancing IoT security through cloud-assisted post-quantum authentication: a case study with UOV signatures

The UOV signature scheme is a promising quantum-resistant candidate in NIST PQC, offering shorter signatures and efficiency, but requires solving a system of linear equations, which presents a challenge while performing in resource-constrained IoT devices. This paper introduces the first-ever idea of securely delegating computationally intensive task in UOV signature generation to third-party (cloud) servers, assisting the implementation of post-quantum cryptographic schemes in resource-constrained devices. The proposed “cloud-assisted” UOV signature scheme uses an honest-but-curious cloud framework to facilitate efficient signature generation without compromising security. In addition, this protocol provides a provably secure framework for the privacy of the communicated data (both input and output), for securely generating a UOV signature. The efficacy of the proposed protocol is demonstrated via experimental evaluation and simulations implemented on a Raspberry Pi 5, providing evidence of a reduction in the computational burden and energy consumption in UOV signature generation using our proposed protocol.