An NTRU-Based Key Encapsulation Scheme for Underwater Acoustic Communication

With the increasing emphasis on safeguarding maritime sovereignty and developing marine resources, the security of underwater acoustic communication has risen to a new level of importance. Given the complex environmental challenges faced by underwater acoustic channels, this paper proposes an NTRU-based key encapsulation scheme designed to ensure secure and reliable underwater data transmission, while maintaining privacy and integrity. In the public-private key pair generation phase, a ring sampling technique is employed to generate a compact NTRU trapdoor, which not only guarantees security but also effectively reduces the communication overhead. During the encapsulation phase, underwater acoustic channel characteristics during communication are introduced as temporary identity information to ensure the confidentiality and reliability of the key encapsulation mechanism. Furthermore, the traditional key encapsulation mechanism is extended by integrating a digital signature process, where the encapsulated ciphertext is signed. The use of digital signature technology verifies the authenticity and integrity of the transmitted data, ensuring that communication data remain secure and unaltered in complex underwater acoustic environments. Finally, we conduct a rigorous correctness analysis and security proofs, demonstrating that the proposed scheme achieves chosen ciphertext security, while meeting the demands of low bandwidth and limited computational capacity in underwater acoustic communication.