A Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithm Based on DNA Computing for IoT Devices

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) applications are used in almost every part of our life, so it is important to protect the sensitive data and information that is transmitted over wireless networks such as images and documents. The IoT devices have limited computational resources; they are called limited devices due to their limited processors and memory size. Traditional encryption methods require a lot of computing power; therefore, it is difficult to implement traditional cryptographic algorithm on IoT processor. Finally, a new, lightweight encryption method based on the DNA sequence is proposed to suit the IoT devices in a way to make an easy and secure the communications among the IoT devices. DNA sequences are very random, so we have used it to make a strong secret key that is hard for attackers to break. The proposed method has an advantage in terms of efficiency and strength. Experiments and security tests show that the proposed encryption system not only has a good encryption effect and can withstand known attacks, but it is also fast enough for real-world use. The DNA key is used to encrypt files using two simple and reliable methods such as substitution and transposition procedures that meet IoT computational requirements. In addition, when compared with other encryption algorithms, the experimental results shows that the key size, encryption time, and distortion preparation are all superior.