In Search of an Efficient Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithm for IOT Devices: A Comparative Review

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) is one of the most promising technologies on the rise in this modern era. It is expected to connect billions of devices(18 billion by 2022 as per Ericsson forecast) within the coming years. These resource constrained devices are expected to deal with a massive chunk of data which can sometimes be coined as “sensitive” in nature. IoT devices were designed to be generally cheap and easily replaceable. As a result, they are treated as expendable devices which is the core cause for their huge resource constraints.

They often have limitations relating power, memory, processing speed etc. as they are not expected to serve the network after a limited amount of time. The lifetime of the network is highly dependent on the power efficiency of the devices and longevity(power supply) of the applied nodes. The easiest and most power efficient mode of communication through IoT nodes is to send data over plaintext. But communication via plaintext is extremely vulnerable and susceptible to all sorts of attacks. Confidentiality of transmitted data is of utmost importance. To provide security to the data, cryptographic techniques are commonly used.

Complication is, traditional encryption methods are very power hungry and often require large processing ability. That’s why lightweight and comparatively more power efficient algorithms are being developed as alternatives. PRESENT, HUMMINGBIRD, RC5, Skipjack, HIGHT and SIT are some of the algorithms used for IoT devices as alternatives to traditional algorithms. A comparative study between these algorithms has been presented here that focuses mostly on power efficiency. Pros and cons along with possible improvements are suggested. This will help in selecting the proper algorithm for power sensitive applications.