## 3 Key Findings
### What Security Enhancement Could the Quantum Mechanism Offer the IIoT Ecosystem?
#### 3.3.2. SOTA of Quantum Mechanism as an Alternative Security Measure  
In line with our search strategy and QAA in Sections 2.2.2 and 2.2.4, respectively, the vast majority of research works in quantum deployment toward IIoTsec are categorizable into three--survey proposal, review, and deployment. The survey proposal is highly statistical and opinion-gathering research. In this concept, researchers seek to be acquainted with the opinions of end users on their knowledge of quantum mechanisms in the IIoT domain. The review category is classically to garner scholastic and systematic synthesis of previous findings in quantum deployments, aiming to give current knowledge and identify research gaps opened for future works. The deployment category is the proposal and/or execution of quantum principles in the domain of IIoT by researchers to detect or prevent security loopholes. The three categories are aimed to advance the frontiers of IIoTsec. In the work of [103], the authors elucidate two varieties of threats from the review of the literature. One is a traditional threat, and the other is a quantum-aided threat. The traditional threats are the assaults that are recognized as pre-quantum vulnerabilities. Some of these threats are recorded to have been detected, prevented, and mitigated using conventional cryptographic approaches. Contrarily, quantum-aided threats are classified as post-quantum attacks, which are not likely to be tamed by a conventional approach but a sophisticated means of quantum approach [92]. The authors emphasized that this category of threats is launched with a quantum element. They also emphasized that a quantum-based security approach would be top-notch as soon as QC is fully commercialized. Hence, more research studies on security are encouraged to be tailored toward quantum deployment. [PERSON] [104] carried out a review of the integration of quantum principles into wireless sensor networks (WSN). The researcher found out that WSN has become \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt}} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Cryptographic Algorithm**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Cryptographic Type**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Main Function**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Security Level Metrics**} & \multicolumn{1}{p{113.8 pt}}{**Towards QC**} \\ \cline{3-6}  & & & **Pre-Quantum** & **Post-Quantum** & **Requirements** \\ \hline Advanced Encryption & & & & & \\ Standard (AES-128) & Symmetric & Block cipher & 128 & 64 & Larger key sizes \\ \hline Advanced Encryption & & & & & \\ Standard (AES-256) & Symmetric & Block cipher & 128 & 64 & Larger key sizes \\ \hline Poly1205 & Symmetric & MAC & 128 & 128 & Larger key sizes \\ \hline Galois Message & & & & & \\ Authentication Code (GMAC) & Symmetric & MAC & 128 & 128 & Larger key sizes \\ \hline [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] (RSA 3072) & Asymmetric & Encryption & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] (RSA 3072) & Asymmetric & Signature & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline Diffie–Hellman (DH 3072) & Asymmetric & Key Exchange & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA 3072) & Asymmetric & Signature & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline Elliptic-curve & & & & & \\ Diffie–Hellman 256-bit & Asymmetric & Key Exchange & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline Elliptic-curve & & & & & \\ Diffie–Hellman 256-bit & Asymmetric & Signature & 128 & Broken & Insecure \\ \hline Salsa20 & Symmetric & Stream Cipher & 256 & 12 & Insecure \\ \hline Secure Hash Algorithm & & & & & \\ SHA-256 & Symmetric & Hash function & 256 & 128 & Enlarged output \\ \hline Secure Hash Algorithm 3 (SHA3) & Symmetric & Hash function & 256 & 128 & Enlarged output \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: State of conventional cryptographic algorithms in the era of quantum computing. a convergent point for the research community in a cybersecurity ecosystem. Any compromise to the security of WSN is a red flag for IIoT security in particular.