{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,26]],"date-time":"2026-06-26T13:59:58Z","timestamp":1782482398750,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]],"date-time":"2026-02-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1769990400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Al-Ahliya Amman University, Amman, Jordan"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Computers"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly integrated into Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems for applications such as surveillance, disaster response, environmental monitoring, and logistics. These missions demand reliable and secure communication between UAVs and cloud platforms for command, control, and data storage. However, UAV communication channels are highly vulnerable to eavesdropping, spoofing, and man-in-the-middle attacks due to their wireless and often long-range nature. Traditional cryptographic schemes either impose excessive computational overhead on resource-constrained UAVs or lack sufficient robustness for cloud-level security. To address this challenge, we propose a dual-layer encryption architecture that balances lightweight efficiency with strong cryptographic guarantees. Unlike prior dual-layer approaches, the proposed framework introduces a context-aware adaptive lightweight layer for UAV-to-gateway communication and a hybrid post-quantum layer for gateway-to-cloud security, enabling dynamic cipher selection, energy-aware key scheduling, and quantum-resilient key establishment. In the first layer, UAV-to-gateway communication employs a lightweight symmetric encryption scheme optimized for low latency and minimal energy consumption. In the second layer, gateway-to-cloud communication uses post-quantum asymmetric encryption to ensure resilience against emerging quantum threats. The architecture is further reinforced with optional multi-path hardening and blockchain-assisted key lifecycle management to enhance scalability and tamper-proof auditability. Experimental evaluation using a UAV testbed and cloud integration shows that the proposed framework achieves 99.85% confidentiality preservation, reduces computational overhead on UAVs by 42%, and improves end-to-end latency by 35% compared to conventional single-layer encryption schemes. These results confirm that the proposed adaptive and hybridized dual-layer design provides a scalable, secure, and resource-aware solution for UAV-to-cloud communication, offering both present-day practicality and future-proof cryptographic resilience.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/computers15020101","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]],"date-time":"2026-02-02T14:12:46Z","timestamp":1770041566000},"page":"101","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["A Novel Dual-Layer Quantum-Resilient Encryption Strategy for UAV\u2013Cloud Communication Using Adaptive Lightweight Ciphers and Hybrid ECC\u2013PQC"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-5389-6778","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mahmoud","family":"Aljamal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Cybersecurity, Faculty of Information Technology, Irbid National University, Irbid 21110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-4647-0460","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bashar S.","family":"Khassawneh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, College of Computer Sciences and Informatics, Amman Arab University, Amman 11953, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9075-2828","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ayoub","family":"Alsarhan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Information Technology, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19111, Jordan"},{"name":"Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Prince Al-Hussein Bin Abdullah, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Saif","family":"Okour","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Software Engineering, Faculty of Science and Information Technology, Irbid National University, Irbid 21110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3944-0447","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Latifa Abdullah","family":"Almusfar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Management Information System, College of Business Administration, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), Dammam 31451, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7643-1224","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bashair Faisal","family":"AlThani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Management Information System, College of Business Administration, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), Dammam 31451, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Waad","family":"Aldossary","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Marketing, College of Business, Al Yamamah University, Khobar 12674, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"83996","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2023.3303211","article-title":"5G and beyond private military communication: Trend, requirements, challenges and enablers","volume":"11","author":"Bajracharya","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Poorvi, J., Kalita, A., and Gurusamy, M. 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