Cross-Layer Performance Analysis of Post-Quantum Digital Signatures in Urban 5G-V2X Communications
Resumo
As quantum computing threatens existing public key algorithms within the next decade, transitioning to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is imperative. This paper evaluates the physical and MAC layer impacts of adopting PQC in 5G-V2X networks. Using the WiLabV2Xsim simulator in a 3GPP-compliant urban scenario, we assess network degradation across different post-quantum signature algorithms, and provide evidence that algorithms with large signatures cause severe radio channel saturation and latency, while compact alternatives introduce heavy computational bottlenecks. We conclude that direct ECDSA replacement is unfeasible, and that securing future V2X systems requires fundamental changes on the current PKI paradigm.Referências
3GPP (2015). Study on LTE support for Vehicle to Everything (V2X) services. Technical Report (TR) 22.885, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Version 14.0.0.
3GPP (2019). Study on evaluation methodology of new Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) use cases for LTE and NR. Technical Report (TR) 37.885, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Version 15.3.0.
Aardal, M. A., Adj, G., Aranha, D. F., Basso, A., Canales Martínez, I. A., Chávez-Saab, J., Corte-Real Santos, M., Dartois, P., De Feo, L., Duparc, M., Eriksen, J. K., Fouotsa, T. B., Gazzoni Filho, D. L., Hess, B., Kohel, D., Leroux, A., Longa, P., Maino, L., Meyer, M., Nakagawa, K., Onuki, H., Panny, L., Patranabis, S., Petit, C., Pope, G., Reijnders, K., Robert, D., Rodríguez-Henríquez, F., Schaeffler, S., and Wesolowski, B. (2025). SQIsign. Technical report, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Alagic, G. (2025). Status Report on the Fourth Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process. Internal Report (IR) IR 8545, NIST.
Alagic, G. (2026). Status Report on the Second Round of the Additional Digital Signature Schemes for the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process. Internal Report (IR) IR 8610, NIST.
Beullens, W., Campos, F., Celi, S., Hess, B., and Kannwischer, M. J. (2024). Nibbling mayo: Optimized implementations for avx2 and cortex-m4. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2024(2):252–275.
Beullens, W., Campos, F., Celi, S., Hess, B., and Kannwischer, M. J. (2025). MAYO specification document. Submission to the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Additional Digital Signatures Call. Available at [link].
Boschini, C., Fiore, D., Pagnin, E., Torresetti, L., and Visconti, A. Progressive and efficient verification for digital signatures: Extensions and experimental results. 14(3):551–575.
Cominetti, E. L., Silva, M. V. M., Simplicio, M. A., Kupwade Patil, H., and Ricardini, J. E. (2023). Faster verification of V2X basic safety messages via Message Chaining. Vehicular Communications, 44:100662.
ETSI (2019). Specification of cooperative awareness basic service. European Standard ETSI EN 302 637-2, ETSI.
ETSI (2021). Security header and certificate formats. Technical Specification ETSI TS 103 097, ETSI.
ETSI (2025). Service requirements for v2x services. Technical Specification ETSI TS 122 185, ETSI.
Fouque, P.-A., Hoffstein, J., Kirchner, P., Lyubashevsky, V., Pornin, T., Prest, T., Ricosset, T., Seiler, G., Whyte, W., and Zhang, Z. (2020). Falcon: Fast-Fourier lattice-based compact signatures over NTRU. Submission to the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project.
Garcia, M. H. C., Molina-Galan, A., Boban, M., Gozalvez, J., Coll-Perales, B., Şahin, T., and Kousaridas, A. (2021). A Tutorial on 5G NR V2X Communications. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 23(3):1972–2026.
Hegde, A., Delooz, Q., Mariyaklla, C. L., Festag, A., and Klingler, F. (2023). Radio Resource Allocation for Collective Perception in 5G-NR Vehicle-to-X Communication Systems. In 2023 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), pages 1–7. ISSN: 1558-2612.
Lonc, B., Aubry, A., Bakhti, H., Christofi, M., and Mehrez, H. A. (2023). Feasibility and Benchmarking of Post-Quantum Cryptography in the Cooperative ITS Ecosystem. In 2023 IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC), pages 215–222. ISSN: 2157-9865.
Regenscheid, A. (2024). Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards. Technical Report NIST IR 8547 ipd, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD.
Rito, P., Almeida, A., Figueiredo, A., Gomes, C., Teixeira, P., Rosmaninho, R., Lopes, R., Dias, D., Vítor, G., Perna, G., Silva, M., Senna, C., Raposo, D., Luís, M., Sargento, S., Oliveira, A., and de Carvalho, N. B. (2023). Aveiro Tech City Living Lab: A Communication, Sensing, and Computing Platform for City Environments. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 10(15):13489–13510.
Sedar, R., Kalalas, C., Vázquez-Gallego, F., Alonso, L., and Alonso-Zarate, J. (2023). A Comprehensive Survey of V2X Cybersecurity Mechanisms and Future Research Paths. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, 4:325–391.
Shor, P. (1994). Algorithms for quantum computation: discrete logarithms and factoring. In Proc. 35th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, pages 124–134.
Todisco, V., Bartoletti, S., Campolo, C., Molinaro, A., Berthet, A. O., and Bazzi, A. (2021). Performance Analysis of Sidelink 5G-V2X Mode 2 Through an Open-Source Simulator. IEEE Access, 9:145648–145661.
Twardokus, G., Bindel, N., Rahbari, H., and McCarthy, S. (2024). When Cryptography Needs a Hand: Practical Post-Quantum Authentication for V2V Communications. In Proceedings 2024 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, San Diego, CA, USA. Internet Society.
Webster, P., Berent, L., Chandra, O., Hockings, E. T., Baspin, N., Thomsen, F., Smith, S. C., and Cohen, L. Z. (2026). The Pinnacle Architecture: Reducing the cost of breaking RSA-2048 to 100 000 physical qubits using quantum LDPC codes. arXiv:2602.11457 [quant-ph].
Wu, Z., Bartoletti, S., Martinez, V., Todisco, V., and Bazzi, A. (2023). Analysis of Co-Channel Coexistence Mitigation Methods Applied to IEEE 802.11p and 5G NR-V2X Sidelink. Sensors, 23(9).
Yan, J. and Härri, J. (2022). MCS Analysis for 5G-NR V2X Sidelink Broadcast Communication. In 2022 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), pages 1347–1352.
Yoshizawa, T. and Preneel, B. (2023). Post-Quantum Impacts on V2X Certificates – Already at The End of The Road. In 2023 IEEE 97th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2023-Spring), pages 1–6.
3GPP (2019). Study on evaluation methodology of new Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) use cases for LTE and NR. Technical Report (TR) 37.885, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Version 15.3.0.
Aardal, M. A., Adj, G., Aranha, D. F., Basso, A., Canales Martínez, I. A., Chávez-Saab, J., Corte-Real Santos, M., Dartois, P., De Feo, L., Duparc, M., Eriksen, J. K., Fouotsa, T. B., Gazzoni Filho, D. L., Hess, B., Kohel, D., Leroux, A., Longa, P., Maino, L., Meyer, M., Nakagawa, K., Onuki, H., Panny, L., Patranabis, S., Petit, C., Pope, G., Reijnders, K., Robert, D., Rodríguez-Henríquez, F., Schaeffler, S., and Wesolowski, B. (2025). SQIsign. Technical report, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Alagic, G. (2025). Status Report on the Fourth Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process. Internal Report (IR) IR 8545, NIST.
Alagic, G. (2026). Status Report on the Second Round of the Additional Digital Signature Schemes for the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process. Internal Report (IR) IR 8610, NIST.
Beullens, W., Campos, F., Celi, S., Hess, B., and Kannwischer, M. J. (2024). Nibbling mayo: Optimized implementations for avx2 and cortex-m4. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2024(2):252–275.
Beullens, W., Campos, F., Celi, S., Hess, B., and Kannwischer, M. J. (2025). MAYO specification document. Submission to the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Additional Digital Signatures Call. Available at [link].
Boschini, C., Fiore, D., Pagnin, E., Torresetti, L., and Visconti, A. Progressive and efficient verification for digital signatures: Extensions and experimental results. 14(3):551–575.
Cominetti, E. L., Silva, M. V. M., Simplicio, M. A., Kupwade Patil, H., and Ricardini, J. E. (2023). Faster verification of V2X basic safety messages via Message Chaining. Vehicular Communications, 44:100662.
ETSI (2019). Specification of cooperative awareness basic service. European Standard ETSI EN 302 637-2, ETSI.
ETSI (2021). Security header and certificate formats. Technical Specification ETSI TS 103 097, ETSI.
ETSI (2025). Service requirements for v2x services. Technical Specification ETSI TS 122 185, ETSI.
Fouque, P.-A., Hoffstein, J., Kirchner, P., Lyubashevsky, V., Pornin, T., Prest, T., Ricosset, T., Seiler, G., Whyte, W., and Zhang, Z. (2020). Falcon: Fast-Fourier lattice-based compact signatures over NTRU. Submission to the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project.
Garcia, M. H. C., Molina-Galan, A., Boban, M., Gozalvez, J., Coll-Perales, B., Şahin, T., and Kousaridas, A. (2021). A Tutorial on 5G NR V2X Communications. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 23(3):1972–2026.
Hegde, A., Delooz, Q., Mariyaklla, C. L., Festag, A., and Klingler, F. (2023). Radio Resource Allocation for Collective Perception in 5G-NR Vehicle-to-X Communication Systems. In 2023 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), pages 1–7. ISSN: 1558-2612.
Lonc, B., Aubry, A., Bakhti, H., Christofi, M., and Mehrez, H. A. (2023). Feasibility and Benchmarking of Post-Quantum Cryptography in the Cooperative ITS Ecosystem. In 2023 IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC), pages 215–222. ISSN: 2157-9865.
Regenscheid, A. (2024). Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards. Technical Report NIST IR 8547 ipd, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD.
Rito, P., Almeida, A., Figueiredo, A., Gomes, C., Teixeira, P., Rosmaninho, R., Lopes, R., Dias, D., Vítor, G., Perna, G., Silva, M., Senna, C., Raposo, D., Luís, M., Sargento, S., Oliveira, A., and de Carvalho, N. B. (2023). Aveiro Tech City Living Lab: A Communication, Sensing, and Computing Platform for City Environments. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 10(15):13489–13510.
Sedar, R., Kalalas, C., Vázquez-Gallego, F., Alonso, L., and Alonso-Zarate, J. (2023). A Comprehensive Survey of V2X Cybersecurity Mechanisms and Future Research Paths. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, 4:325–391.
Shor, P. (1994). Algorithms for quantum computation: discrete logarithms and factoring. In Proc. 35th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, pages 124–134.
Todisco, V., Bartoletti, S., Campolo, C., Molinaro, A., Berthet, A. O., and Bazzi, A. (2021). Performance Analysis of Sidelink 5G-V2X Mode 2 Through an Open-Source Simulator. IEEE Access, 9:145648–145661.
Twardokus, G., Bindel, N., Rahbari, H., and McCarthy, S. (2024). When Cryptography Needs a Hand: Practical Post-Quantum Authentication for V2V Communications. In Proceedings 2024 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, San Diego, CA, USA. Internet Society.
Webster, P., Berent, L., Chandra, O., Hockings, E. T., Baspin, N., Thomsen, F., Smith, S. C., and Cohen, L. Z. (2026). The Pinnacle Architecture: Reducing the cost of breaking RSA-2048 to 100 000 physical qubits using quantum LDPC codes. arXiv:2602.11457 [quant-ph].
Wu, Z., Bartoletti, S., Martinez, V., Todisco, V., and Bazzi, A. (2023). Analysis of Co-Channel Coexistence Mitigation Methods Applied to IEEE 802.11p and 5G NR-V2X Sidelink. Sensors, 23(9).
Yan, J. and Härri, J. (2022). MCS Analysis for 5G-NR V2X Sidelink Broadcast Communication. In 2022 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), pages 1347–1352.
Yoshizawa, T. and Preneel, B. (2023). Post-Quantum Impacts on V2X Certificates – Already at The End of The Road. In 2023 IEEE 97th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2023-Spring), pages 1–6.
Publicado
01/09/2026
Como Citar
TEIXEIRA, Caio; HENRIQUES, Marco Amaral.
Cross-Layer Performance Analysis of Post-Quantum Digital Signatures in Urban 5G-V2X Communications. In: SIMPÓSIO BRASILEIRO DE CIBERSEGURANÇA (SBSEG), 26. , 2026, Armação dos Búzios/RJ.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2026
.
p. 392-407.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbseg.2026.27766.
