Versatile Quantum-Safe Hybrid Key Exchange and Its Application to MACsec

Abstract

Advancements in quantum computing pose a significant threat to most of the cryptography currently deployed. Fortunately, cryptographic building blocks to mitigate the threat are already available; mostly based on post-quantum and quantum cryptography, but also on symmetric cryptography techniques. Notably, quantum-safe building blocks must be deployed as soon as possible due to the ``harvest-now decrypt-later'' attack scenario, which is already challenging our sensitive and encrypted data today. Following an agile defense-in-depth approach, Hybrid Authenticated Key Exchange (HAKE) protocols have recently been gaining significant attention. Such protocols modularly combine conventional, post-quantum, and quantum cryptography to achieve confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity guarantees for network channels. Unfortunately, only a few protocols have yet been proposed (mainly Muckle and Muckle+) with different flexibility guarantees. Looking at available standards in the network domain (especially at the Media Access Control Security (MACsec) standard), we believe that HAKE protocols could already bring strong security benefits to MACsec today. MACsec is a standard designed to secure communication at the data link layer in Ethernet networks by providing security for all traffic between adjacent entities. In addition, MACsec establishes secure channels within a Local Area Network (LAN), ensuring that data remain protected from eavesdropping, tampering, and unauthorized access, while operating transparently to higher layer protocols. Currently, MACsec does not offer enough protection in the event of cryptographically relevant quantum computers. In this work, we tackle the challenge and propose a new versatile HAKE protocol, dubbed VMuckle, which is sufficiently flexible for the use in MACsec to provide LAN participants with hybrid key material ensuring secure communication.