Post-Quantum Cryptographic Analysis of Message Transformations Across the Network Stack

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 9 Apr 2026] Post-Quantum Cryptographic Analysis of Message Transformations Across the Network Stack Ashish Kundu, Vishal Chakraborty, Ramana Kompella When a user sends a message over a wireless network, the message does not travel as-is. It is encrypted, authenticated, encapsulated, and transformed as it descends the protocol stack from the application layer to the physical medium. Each layer may apply its own cryptographic operations using its own algorithms, and these algorithms differ in their vulnerability to quantum computers. The security of the overall communication depends not on any single layer but on the \emph{composition} of transformations across all layers. We develop a preliminary formal framework for analyzing these cross-layer cryptographic transformations with respect to post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) readiness. We classify every per-layer cryptographic operation into one of four quantum vulnerability categories, define how per-layer PQC statuses compose across the full message transformation chain, and prove that this composition forms a bounded lattice with confidentiality composing via the join (max) operator and authentication via the meet (min). We apply the framework to five communication scenarios spanning Linux and iOS platforms, and identify several research challenges. Among our findings: WPA2-Personal provides strictly better PQC posture than both WPA3-Personal and WPA2-Enterprise; a single post-quantum layer suffices for payload confidentiality but \emph{every} layer must migrate for complete authentication; and metadata protection depends solely on the outermost layer. Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) Cite as: arXiv:2604.08480 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2604.08480v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.08480 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ashish Kundu [view email] [v1] Thu, 9 Apr 2026 17:22:47 UTC (25 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.NI References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)