Enhancing Vehicle IoT Security with PQC: A Lightweight Approach for Encrypted Sensor Data Transmission

Cybersecurity threats are evolving constantly, and the arrival of quantum computing raises serious doubts about whether today’s cryptographic methods will hold up over time. This concern has motivated interest in algorithms designed to resist future attacks, with CRYSTALS-Kyber emerging as a practical candidate and forming the basis of an NIST post-quantum standard. This study focuses on protecting data exchanged between a vehicle sensor suite and cloud services over the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol. Performance must remain acceptable; therefore, attention centers on lightweight and efficient execution while leveraging the board’s hardware capabilities to keep latency and resource usage low. Adding this layer of post-quantum encryption helps limit the exposure of critical telemetry and control data to sophisticated adversaries. It also aims to preserve integrity and confidentiality in vehicular communications as the Internet of Things becomes increasingly connected. This approach maintains a practical balance between forward-looking security and real-world deployability.