Post-quantum cryptography for healthcare: future-proofing population health databases against quantum computing threats
Abstract
In the face of quantum computing advancements, classical encryption methods used in protecting health data are expected to become insecure within the next 10-15 years. This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive, detailed framework for healthcare organizations, specifically targeting population health databases, to migrate their cryptographic systems to quantum-resistant algorithms without disrupting performance or violating compliance standards.
We provide implementation and performance analysis of the four NIST standard candidate post-quantum algorithms CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Di lithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+, all tuned for high-throughput, low-latency healthcare workloads. Our empirical data demonstrates that Kyber-1024 is best-suited for health record encryption tasks with minimal performance overhead (2.3x slower) compared to AES-256, and Dilithium-5 offers the most efficient trade-off for long-term signature security for audit logging (4.1x slower than RSA-2048). The research introduces an innovative "crypto agility" system design, facilitating seamless transitioning between traditional and post-quantum cryptographic methods. This design mitigates transitional risks and enables concurrent support for both legacy and quantum-resistant cryptographic processes. Protocols for negotiating between different cryptographic algorithms automatically, based on a combination of data sensitivity, retention policies, and prevailing threat models, are also established.…
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