Adaptive post-quantum security framework for wireless sensor networks using lightweight cryptography and context-aware key management
摘要
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have emerged as a critical technology enabling pervasive monitoring and data collection in diverse domains such as smart cities, industrial automation, health care, and environmental sensing. However, their inherent constraints in energy, computation, and memory, combined with deployment in often hostile or unattended environments, make them highly vulnerable to a wide range of security threats. The imminent rise of quantum computing further exacerbates this challenge by rendering many classical cryptographic schemes obsolete. This paper proposes an adaptive post-quantum security framework for WSNs that leverages lightweight cryptography and context-aware key management to achieve quantum-resistant protection while maintaining resource efficiency. Unlike traditional static security mechanisms, the proposed framework dynamically adjusts cryptographic operations and key lengths in response to real-time network context, including node energy reserves, environmental conditions, detected attack vectors, and communication patterns. At its core, it employs efficient lattice-based encryption algorithms for secure key establishment and lightweight symmetric primitives for data confidentiality and integrity. The context-aware key management protocol optimizes the trade-off between security strength and resource utilization, extending network lifetime without compromising resilience against classical and quantum adversaries. A prototype implementation was evaluated on a representative WSN testbed using off-the-shelf low-power microcontrollers. Experimental results show that the framework reduces energy consumption by 14%, maintains CPU load under 24%, and completes adaptation cycles in under 200