Citation :

Dasari Veera Reddy, Padmaja Madugula, "PQC-Guard: A Unified Cryptographic Framework Integrating Hybrid Encryption and Key Exchange for Comprehensive Post-Quantum Data Security," International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering, vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 162-191, 2026. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23488549/IJECE-V13I10P110

Abstract

The advent of quantum computing threatens conventional public-key cryptographic systems, and there is an urgent need for comprehensive frameworks to aid the shift towards post-quantum cryptography. Current approaches that establish a key and encrypt data separately suffer from disjointed protection, limited protection capabilities, integration complexity, and inadequate consideration of the performance-security relationship. In this study, we propose a hybrid cryptographic framework, PQC-Guard, for post-quantum-oriented information security that combines hybrid key establishment and multilayer encryption. The proposed GuardFusionAlgo is a hybrid key establishment (as DSKE), hybrid session-key derivation, encryption-specific sub-key generation, multilayer protection (as MDES), QBM transformations, secure transmission and reverse-order data recovery. Experimental evaluation shows that PQC-Guard has a ciphertext entropy of 7.997 bits/byte, an avalanche effect of 50.21%, a key sensitivity of 50.18%, a plaintext-ciphertext correlation of 0.0012, a 100% tampering detection rate, a 99.6% replay detection rate, and a 98.9% partial key-compromise resistance rate. The framework yields an end-to-end throughput of 15.72 MB/s for a 500 MB workload, negligible ciphertext expansion, manageable computational resource consumption, and 100% successful recovery in all experiments conducted concurrently. Ablation and comparative analyses of the individual components, along with statistical analyses, further highlight each component's contribution and confirm a strong overall performance-security trade-off. PQC-Guard offers a viable solution for post-quantum-ready cloud storage, enterprise communication, secure file transfer, and distributed data protection environments.

Keywords

Post-Quantum Cryptography, Hybrid key exchange, Multilayer encryption, Cryptographic security, Quantum-Resistant data protection.

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