Lightweight and secure cipher scheme for multi-homed systems

Abstract

Multiple access technologies allow a network to connect to two or more communication networks efficiently, to enhance system performance. They are more robust and reliable than legacy technologies, which allow the connection to one network at a time. In this paper, a new and efficient dynamic and key-dependent cipher scheme is designed to secure multi-homed devices, in real-time, while preserving their main functionality and meeting the stringent Quality of Service requirements. The proposed scheme consists of a dynamic key derivation technique that mixes together a dynamic nonce and a secret key. The dynamic nonce is extracted from multiple channels, after establishing a new session. The proposed approach is based on simple operations such as substitution and permutation, to enhance the network robustness against different types of attacks. The dynamicity is based on the random nature of physical channels and as such, data confidentiality, integrity and source authentication are achieved with the least amount of resources, delay and computational complexity. The implementation of the proposed cipher scheme is appropriate for small and resource-constrained devices including IoT devices and mobile phones (battery-constrained devices). Theoretical and simulation results confirm that the cipher scheme has a better efficiency than other recent schemes, which require multiple rounds. In addition, a cryptanalysis discussion is provided towards proving that the proposed cipher is capable of resisting and preventing the different existing cryptanalysis and security attacks.