Upgrading smart meters with quantum security
Smart meters could easily be seen as weak end-points to critical infrastructure and energy data, both for HNDL attacks and the threats of the future. These devices, often running on ARM Cortex CPUs can be difficult to update due to their long lifecycles and low-power, resource constrained microcontrollers. PQC algorithms such as FIPS 203 ML-KEM and FIPS 204 ML-DSA are increasingly required for security on such devices, but also use larger keys and more complex mathematics, adding a potentially significant overhead to the task of updating smart metering.
PQMicroLib-Core
PQMicroLib-Core is a flexible cryptographic library that provides software implementations of both ML-KEM and ML-DSA. It’s engineered for optimization, making it flexible for older or low-end microcontrollers and MCUs, configurable for binary size, and supporting optional timing-constant side-channel protection. In addition, PQMicroLib-Core is designed to support hybrid PQ/T schemes for post-quantum/traditional migration.