Comment by __MatrixMan__

I'm no cryptographer, but I would say that it is indeed the case that you can assume that two parties can derive a shared key over an untrusted channel. The post Cryptography Right Answers PQ [1], linked in another comment, addresses this in the section "Key Exchange". Rather than thinking about Diffie-Hellman directly, you would turn to a Key Exchange Mechanism (KEM).

Before post-quantum cryptography concerns, KEM were indeed mostly built on top of Diffie-Hellman key agreement, but you could also build one on top of RSA, or on top of some lattice constructs. But you wouldn't build one yourself, there are good constructions to choose from! The OP actually has a 3-part series on KEMs, although I don't think it addresses post-quantum issues [2].

[1]: https://www.latacora.com/blog/2024/07/29/crypto-right-answer... [2]: https://neilmadden.blog/2021/01/22/hybrid-encryption-and-the...

One thing to note about authentication in DH-like systems is that you can derive symmetric key without authenticating the parties, establish secure (but unauthenticated) channel with the resulting symmetric key(s) and the do authentication inside that channel in a way that will only succeed if the symmetric key used by both parties is the same (this is called channel binding). For example SSH2 and many Active Directory related protocols do this.

DH + HMAC on its own doesn't give you authentication, anyone can establish a symmetric key. It's possible to build authentication on top but it requires pre-shared data or PKI.