A Modified Tiny Encryption Algorithm Using Key Rotation to Enhance Data Security for Internet of Things

Abstract

The Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA) has been proven to be suitable for constrained devices because of its lightness. However, TEA suffers from equivalent key and related key attacks. This paper proposed a modification to TEA to improve its security by rotating its subkeys to every round function as the new key scheduling scheme. Also, the round function of TEA was also modified by shifting the keys before integrating to the functions. The modified TEA was benchmarked with the original TEA with avalanche effect and completeness test. The modified TEA avalanche effect is 54.4% against 47.2% for TEA, and its’ completeness test is 51.4% against 49% for TEA. The modified TEA was also tested with equivalent keys and produces different ciphertext. The tests showed that the modified TEA is more secure than the original TEA.