Performance Evaluation of Symmetric Encryption Algorithms Using MCDM Methods

Abstract

Data and information are found to be stored, processed or transferred with the support of modern technological tools and hardware specifications. Due to the increase in the usage of digital communication and higher dependency on the internet technology platform, the risk factor also increased. Thus, it is essential to use safety and precautionary measures while storing and transferring data in order to prevent unauthorized access. One of the way of achieving this is through confidentiality, which uses various encryption algorithms to convert a readable message (plain text) into unreadable form (cipher text). Cryptographic algorithms are of two types- symmetric encryption algorithms and asymmetric encryption algorithms. This paper focused on few symmetric encryption algorithms namely 3DES, AES, Blowfish and IDEA. The objective of this work is to evaluate the performance of these encryption algorithms on the basis of three criteria- time, resource and privacy. The evaluation is done using MCDM methods such as PROMETHEE II, COPRAS and ARAS, which determine the ranking of these encryption algorithms based on the score obtained. The simulation has been performed in C/C++ compiler and the result analysis shows that Blowfish algorithm is considered as the best symmetric encryption algorithm in comparison to the others for COPRAS and ARAS methods whereas, IDEA is the best ranked in PROMETHEE II method.