Improving the security of internet of things using cryptographic algorithms: a case of smart irrigation systems

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) as a ubiquitous paradigm is a new concept in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and has the ability to connect wireless and mobile embedded devices and things to the Internet. IoT is emerging as a key component of the Internet and a vital infrastructure for millions of smart and interconnected objects that are potentially vulnerable to different attacks. Thus, the security of resource-constrained devices in IoT is highly important. As an important solution, cryptographic algorithms are used to provide confidentiality and integrity of the transmitted data between the sender and receiver. Hence, this paper proposes a new hybrid cryptographic algorithm based on Rivest cipher (RC4), Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (ECC), and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256) to protect sensitive information in IoT-based smart irrigation systems. In this paper, the RC4 key is encrypted by the ECC algorithm, and the output of this encryption process is transformed to SHA-256 for hashing and generating enigmatic data. SHA-256 algorithm encrypts RC4 based cipher text to improve data integrity. Comprehensive analysis and simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme is secure to various known attacks such as the Man-in-the-middle (MiM) attack, and has a better performance than other cryptographic algorithms. Also, the obtained results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model and robustness in order to confidentiality based on analyzing secrecy.