Enhancement of A Quantum Resistant Identity Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme for UAV Networks

Secure communication in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks is critical for civil and military missions, from precision agriculture and disaster response to critical infrastructure monitoring, all of which require lightweight, tamper-resistant, and quantumsecure authentication. We analyze the recently proposed quantum-resistant identity authentication and key agreement scheme for UAV networks based on the Kyber algorithm (LIGKYX) and demonstrate critical weaknesses, including the lack of Perfect Forward/ Backward Secrecy (PFS/PBS) and desynchronization vulnerabilities. To address these, we propose a protocol that integrates SRAM-based Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) with the Kyber post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, eliminating the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and stateful counters used in LIGKYX. The protocol is validated through formal (BAN logic) and informal analyses, showing resistance to replay, impersonation, man-in-the-middle, desynchronization, and UAV capture attacks. The total communication overhead is reduced by 7.1% (from 1836 to 1705 bytes) and the total authentication time by more than 54% (from 87.84 ms to 40.23 ms). The proposed solution offers a lightweight, scalable, and quantum-resistant authentication framework for resource-constrained UAV environments.