A Substitution Box for Lightweight Ciphers to Secure Internet of Things

Abstract

The Internet of Things is a resource-constrained device that demands lightweight cryptographic solutions to achieve high performance and optimal security. In lightweight ciphers Substitution Box (S-box) plays an important role as it enables confusion property. However, it is one of the costlier operations. The design and construction of such S-boxes for Internet of Things (IoT) devices are crucial..Hence, we propose a 4-bit, highly Nonlinear, Bijective, Balanced S-box called Feather S-box to enable confusion in lightweight ciphers. The hardware performance of Feather S-Box is analysed in terms of Area and Critical Path-Delay cost. While examining the Area Delay-Product and Power-Delay Product, it shows 23% and 19% lower than PRESENT cipher and 12% lesser than GIFT and KATAN ciphers. The security analysis of the proposed S-Box is also done in terms of Nonlinearity, Bijective, Balanced, Global Avalanche characteristics, resistance to Algebraic attack, Side-channel attacks, Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis. The Feather S-box also exhibts good cryptographic properties such as Nonlinearity and immunity against Algebraic attacks. Moreover, it offers good resistance against Side-channel attack, Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis. We also observed that the Feather S-box has the highest immunity against Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis except for the SKINNY cipher.