Speaker: Davide de Zuane
(IMT Lucca)
13 Febbraio 2026 | 10:15
DEIB, Sala Seminari "A. Alario" (Ed. 21)
Contatti: Prof. Alessandro Barenghi
Sommario
On February 13th, 2026, at 10:15 am the seminar on "IKE: Relevant Challenges for a Messy Protocol" will take place in DEIB “Alessandra Alario” Seminar Room (Building 21).The transition to post-quantum cryptography is not limited to the design of new cryptographic primitives resistant to adversaries equipped with quantum computers, but also requires their effective integration into existing network protocols. In this context, aspects such as interoperability, computational overhead, latency, bandwidth consumption, and compatibility with resource-constrained devices become critical. In recent years, major protocols such as TLS and SSH have initiated or completed the integration of post-quantum mechanisms, often through hybrid approaches that combine classical and post-quantum algorithms.
However, several widely deployed security protocols have not yet fully completed this transition. Among them, Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is a core protocol for key negotiation and the establishment of IPsec VPNs.
Adapting IKE to post-quantum security raises challenges related to quantum-resistant key exchange, protocol overhead, and deployability on constrained devices. Although a variant of the protocol known as Minimal IKE aims to reduce the computational and memory footprint of the protocol, the integration of post-quantum primitives within this constrained framework is still unresolved.
The talk will focus on the architectural and protocol-level modifications required to integrate post-quantum primitives into IKE, comparing two main design strategies: modifying the protocol to support primitives with non-conventional requirements, and engineering the cryptographic primitives themselves to comply with IKE constraints in terms of messaging, state management, and computational resources.