Quantum-Resistant Digital Watermarking- Preparing for Post-Quantum Cryptography
Neha Varshney, Jhalak Saxena, Arun Mittal, Shilpi Gupta · 2025
Quantum computers pose existential threats to classical cryptographic systems, including those used to secure digital watermarking—the embedding of robust, imperceptible information into multimedia for copyright protection and authentication. As Shor's and Grover's algorithms undermine the security of RSA, ECC, and symmetric key schemes, respectively, watermarking techniques reliant on these cryptosystems are at risk of attack once practical quantum computers emerge. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in quantum-resistant, or post-quantum, digital watermarking. We examine approaches that leverage post-quantum public-key primitives, such as lattice-based, hash-based, and code-based cryptography, to establish secure embedding and verification protocols that are immune to quantum decryption. Additionally, we analyze the computational trade-offs of integrating quantum-safe algorithms into watermarking pipelines—in terms of embedding transparency, capacity, computational cost, and resilience against attacks.