Bitwise XOR Operation Research Articles

A lightweight and flexible mutual authentication and key agreement protocol for wearable sensing devices in WBAN

PurposeA wireless body area network (WBAN) is a collection of sensing devices attached to a person’s body that is typically used during health care to track their physical state. This paper aims to study the security challenges and various attacks that occurred while transferring a person’s sensitive medical diagnosis information in WBAN.Design/methodology/approachThis technology has significantly gained prominence in the medical field. These wearable sensors are transferring information to doctors, and there are numerous possibilities for an intruder to pose as a doctor and obtain information about the patient’s vital information. As a result, mutual authentication and session key negotiations are critical security challenges for wearable sensing devices in WBAN. This work proposes an improved mutual authentication and key agreement protocol for wearable sensing devices in WBAN. The existing related schemes require more computational and storage requirements, but the proposed method provides a flexible solution with less complexity.FindingsAs sensor devices are resource-constrained, proposed approach only makes use of cryptographic hash-functions and bit-wise XOR operations, hence it is lightweight and flexible. The protocol’s security is validated using the AVISPA tool, and it will withstand various security attacks. The proposed protocol’s simulation and performance analysis are compared to current relevant schemes and show that it produces efficient outcomes.Originality/valueThis technology has significantly gained prominence in the medical sector. These sensing devises transmit information to doctors, and there are possibilities for an intruder to pose as a doctor and obtain information about the patient’s vital information. Hence, this paper proposes a lightweight and flexible protocol for mutual authentication and key agreement for wearable sensing devices in WBAN only makes use of cryptographic hash-functions and bit-wise XOR operations. The proposed protocol is simulated using AVISPA tool and its performance is better compared to the existing methods. This paper proposes a novel improved mutual authentication and key-agreement protocol for wearable sensing devices in WBAN.

Lightweight Key Management Scheme Using Fuzzy Extractor for Wireless Mobile Sensor Network

The mature design of wireless mobile sensor network makes it to be used in vast verities of applications including from home used to the security surveillance. All such types of applications based on wireless mobile sensor network are generally using real time data, most of them are interested in real time communication directly from cluster head of cluster instead of a base station in cluster network. This would be possible if an external user allows to directly access real time data from the cluster head in cluster wireless mobile sensor network instead of accessing data from base station. But this leads to a serious security breach and degrades the performance of any security protocol available in this domain. Most existing schemes for authentication and cluster key management for external users, exchange a number of messages between cluster head and base station to allow external to access real time data from the base station instead of cluster head. This increase communication cost and delay in such real time access information. To handle this critical issue in cluster wireless mobile sensor network, we propose a lightweight authentication and key management scheme using a fuzzy extractor. In this scheme, any external user can access data directly from the cluster head of any cluster without the involvement of the base station. The proposed scheme only uses the one-way hash functions and bitwise XOR operations, apart from the fuzzy extractor method for the user biometric verification at the login phase. The presented scheme supports scalability for an increasing number of nodes using polynomials. The proposed scheme increases the life-time of the network by decreasing the key pool size.

Fast Chaotic Image Encryption Algorithm Using a Novel Divide and Conquer Diffusion Strategy

To protect image privacy in real-time transmission, a fast chaotic image encryption algorithm using a novel divide and conquer diffusion strategy is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a fast pseudo-random sequence generator is constructed using 2D hyperchaotic systems. And by performing bitwise XOR operation between two integer sequences obtained from different systems, the final key stream used for diffusion will have better randomness and unpredictability. Secondly, to achieve divide and conquer diffusion, the plain image is divided into three parts, then a parallel CBC-based diffusion method can simultaneously act on upper and bottom parts (or left and right parts), which achieves a time complexity of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\boldsymbol {O}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$W+H$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ). Moreover, within the diffusion process, the mechanism of information interaction on the central row or column further enhances avalanche effect to resist differential attack. Thirdly, the session key of the proposed algorithm is a mixture of the plain image’s hash value and a true random sequence, which not only improve plaintext sensitivity but also realize one-time pad. Finally, experimental results indicate the superiority of our algorithm to resist statistical, chosen-plaintext, entropy, and other common attacks. Furthermore, by comparison with previous works, our algorithm preforms much faster execution speed with only average of 0.08s to encrypt images of size <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$512\times 512$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , while it provide the same or even higher level of security. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can meet security and efficiency requirements of real-time communications of image data.

Network Coding- Based Energy-Efficient Geographic Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks Using XOR

Abstract: Energy awareness is an essential design issue in wireless sensor network. Therefore, attention must be given to the routing protocols since they might differ depending on the application and network architecture. It is desired to design the energy efficient routing protocols to conserve the power supply of sensor node and prolong its lifetime. In this paper Network Coding-Energy efficient geographic routing protocol (NC-EGRPM) in Wireless Sensor network is an energy efficient scheme which prolong the network life time using the mobile sinks. These algorithms focus on the efficiency of network coding, which could be adoptive, flexible, and intelligent enough to distribute the load among the sensor nodes that can enhance the network lifetime. By using NC (Network Coding), we propose an energy efficienct algorithm to handle uncertain level decision better than other models. We also use the concept of XOR encoding and decoding as a mechanism not only for enhancing energy efficiency but also for reducing the end-to-end-delay. XOR-based coding works on a hop-by-hop basis, i.e. packets encoded by a node are decoded by its neighbouring nodes. The idea is that each node v can combine packets using bitwise XOR operations in order to produce an encoded packet. We are implementing our proposed work using NS2 and measure its performance. Keywords: Network coding, XOR, NS2, WSN

Optimized Chaotic encrypted image based on continuous raster scan method

As the greatest effective method of protection of multimedia data is image encryption is extensively used in data hiding, security authentication and content protection. Nevertheless, the security and efficiency are still the key issues of image encryption algorithm. However, the existing image encryption techniques face the issues namely poor resistance to plaintext attacks, simple algorithmic structures and small key space. In order to overcome the problem of traditional techniques, a joint image encryption techniques of continuous raster Scan, Henon Chaotic Map and Chebyshev Chaotic Map are developed for providing a security of images. Initially, the continuous raster is used to scramble the pixels of each blocks, where images are partitioning an image into non overlapping blocks and starting point is randomly selected in Henon Chaotic Map to permute the block. To calculate a random matrix, Chebyshev Chaotic Map is used to generate the sequence based on the secret keys. Finally, bitwise XOR operation between the scrambled image and random matrix is conducted to obtain the encrypted image. The proposed method takes very less time for encryption. Simulation results show that the algorithm is efficient and usable for the security of the image encryption system.

LMAAS-IoT: Lightweight multi-factor authentication and authorization scheme for real-time data access in IoT cloud-based environment

Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of interconnected smart devices which provides tremendous benefits and can be applied in various fields including, but not limited to, healthcare, monitoring, and transportation. Since late of 2019, the world faces coronavirus (COVID-19) which has harmful consequences in humans’ life and economy. Reducing human interaction is the most important health measure to avoid the spread of the infection. In this context, leveraging IoT and cloud-based technology help to remedy COVID-19 consequences by means of enabling individuals to manage their essential activities remotely with minimum engagement. However, sharing and gathering sensitive information over public insecure channel brings enormous security risks. To avoid these risks, we present a new practical lightweight multi-factor authentication and authorization scheme for real-time data access in IoT cloud-based environment, called LMAAS-IoT. Our scheme is suitable for, but not limited to, managing large scale systems such as health infrastructures. LMAAS-IoT is secure, efficient and strengthens user anonymity using dynamic index. Our design supports high scalability systems with efficient user registration process in which the legitimate user can access current as well as newly added system entities without further processes. We employed “one-way cryptographic hash functions” along with “bitwise XOR operations”. In addition, a fuzzy extractor algorithm is used at user side to verify user’s biometric information. LMAAS-IoT is analyzed for security with the help of the widely used “Real-Or-Random (ROR)” model; proof of correctness using BAN-logic; formal security verification using the broadly accepted “Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA)” tool as well as the informal security analysis. LMAAS-IoT is also implemented using NS-3.31 simulator to demonstrate the practicability of our design. Finally, LMAAS-IoT provides more desired attributes and achieves mutual authentication with low computation and communication cost compared with other existing schemes.

Cryptanalysis of hybrid secure image encryption based on Julia set fractals and three-dimensional Lorenz chaotic map

Recently a hybrid secure image encryption scheme based on Julia set and three-dimensional Lorenz chaotic system was suggested. The offered scheme was based on the multiplicative operation carried out by Julia set fractals and bitwise XOR which was implemented by the trajectories obtained from the Lorenz chaotic system. This paper presents the cryptanalysis of the scheme through a chosen-plaintext attack by taking three different chosen images. In this work, a practical chosen-plaintext attack is performed which reveals that the cryptosystem depending on only multiplication and bitwise XOR operation can be effortlessly attacked. The results of the analysis performed on the retrieved image reflect the effectiveness of the chosen-plaintext attack which fruitfully produces the original image.

On the Security of “Secure and Lightweight Authentication with Key Agreement for Smart Wearable Systems”

The advent of smart and pervasive devices have paved the way for the development of Internet of Things in which, various smart devices collect information about the daily life of people and share it to the scientists and specialists. There are numerous applications in the domain of IoT such as smart healthcare systems in which, wearable devices collect health-related data from the users and transmit it for further processes. However, security challenges are a major concern in the success of smart healthcare applications. Specifically, to protect the security of communications among the wearable sensor devices and the gateways/servers, a secure and lightweight authentication scheme is needed. Recently, Li et al. proposed a lightweight authentication scheme for smart wearable systems (IEEE Internet Things J. 10.1109/JIOT.2020.2984618). Their protocol makes use of fuzzy extractor technique and lightweight operations such as bitwise XOR operations and cryptographic hash function. However, in this comment, we prove that Li et al.’s scheme is prone to the stolen wearable device attack and user impersonation attack. We also discuss the causes and provide some suggestions as the remedy.

A novel multi-image cryptosystem based on weighted plain images and using combined chaotic maps

This paper introduces a new multi-image cryptosystem based on modified Henon map and non-linear combinations of chaotic seed maps. Based on the degree of correlation between the adjacent pixels of the plain images, a unique weight is assigned to the plain images. First, the coordinates of plain images are disrupted by modified Henon map as confusion phase. In the first step of diffusion phase, the pixels content of images are changed separately by XOR operation between confused images and matrices with suitable non-linear combination of seed maps sequences. These combinations of seed maps are selected depending on the weight of plain images as well as bifurcation properties of mentioned chaotic maps. After concatenating the matrices obtained from the first step of diffusion phase, the bitwise XOR operations are applied again between newly developed matrix and the other produced matrix from the chaotic sequences of the Logistic–Tent–Sine hybrid system, as second step of diffusion phase. The encrypted image is obtained after applying shift and exchange operations. The results of the implementation using graphs and histograms show that the proposed method requires an average of 49.31 ms less processing time than the best time of some previous methods for 1024 × 1024 images. The entropy is close to the ideal value of 8, and the values of the correlation coefficient of the encrypted images are close to 0. The histogram of the encrypted images is uniform and the value of peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) is about 5 dB more than some compared methods for 50% cropping attack. Therefore, compared to some of the existing methods, the proposed method can also be used as a secure method for encrypting gray-scale digital images.

Secure Multifactor Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Industrial IoT

The application of Internet of Things (IoT) has generally penetrated into people’s life and become popular in recent years. The IoT devices with different functions are integrated and applied to various domains, such as E-health, smart home, Industrial IoT (IIoT), and smart farming. IIoT obtains the general attention among these domains, which allows the authorized user remotely access and control the sensing devices. The user suffices to attain the real-time data collected by sensing devices during the process of production. However, these data is usually transmitted via an insecure channel, which brings the problem of the security and privacy arising from the hostile attacks in IIoT. To resist the hostile attacks by the adversary and protect the security of the transmitted data, we propose a secure multifactor authenticated key agreement scheme for IIoT to support the authorized user remotely accessing the sensing device. The scheme adopts password, biometrics, and smart card to identify the user in the IIoT environment. We employ the secret-sharing technology and Chinese remainder theorem to construct a group key among legitimate sensing devices, and then this group key is utilized to assist in negotiating a secure session key between the user and multiple sensing devices. The proposed scheme is suitable for the resource-constrained IIoT as it only uses hash function, bitwise XOR operation, and symmetric cryptography. The performance analysis indicates that our scheme has less communication and computational costs in contrast to other correlative schemes. Besides, the security analysis indicates that our scheme can withstand many known attacks.

A Novel Encryption of Text Messages Using Two Fold Approach

Background: The amount of digital data created and shared via internet has been increasing every day. The number of security threats has also increased due to the vulnerabilities present in the network hardware and software. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques to secure communication in the presence of third parties. Though there are several cryptosystems to secure the information, there is a necessity to introduce new methods in order to protect information from the attackers. Objective: To propose a new encryption method using Binary Tree Traversal (BTT) and XOR operation to protect the text messages. Methods: The proposed method uses both transposition and substitution techniques for converting plaintext into ciphertext. The notion binary tree traversal is adapted as transposition and bitwise XOR operation is used for substitution. Results: The repeating letters appeared in the plaintext are replaced with different cipher letters and placed on different location in the cipher text. Hence, it is infeasible to identify the plaintext message easily. The time taken by the proposed method for encryption is very less. Conclusion: A simple encryption method using binary tree traversals and XOR operation is developed. Encrypting data using binary tree traversals is a different way while compared with other traditional encryption methods. The proposed method is fast, secure and can be used to encrypt short messages in real time applications.

An Image Encryption Algorithm Based on Bisection Method and One-Dimensional Piecewise Chaotic Map

In this article, an image encryption algorithm via bisection method and one-dimensional piecewise chaotic map is proposed. It depends on the permutation-substitution model. Firstly, the pseudo-random sequence is defined using polynomial values at selected points by repeat interval of the bisection method. The plain image is shuffled using this sequence. Bit-wise XOR operation with a mask generated from the Tent chaotic map is applied on shuffled image to increase the protection of the proposed algorithm. Various types of images are tested using the proposed algorithm. The effectiveness of this algorithm is measured using several statistical tests and compared to a set of other algorithms to verify the security and performance of the algorithm. Furthermore, experimental results and Numerical simulations are performed to verify their ability to resist various attacks.

A Lightweight Anonymous Authentication and Secure Communication Scheme for Fog Computing Services

Fog-driven IoT architecture located between IoT devices and the centralized cloud infrastructure is introduced to extend computing, storage and network services to the edge of the Internet and therefore resources and services of the fog nodes are available and are closer to the end user and end device for providing mobility, low latency and location awareness. However, the paradigm of fog computing due to its inherited properties from cloud as inherits its security and privacy concerns such as spoofing, message replay, impersonation, man-in-the middle and physical capturing of IoT devices etc. To address these concerns in fog computing services, in this paper, a lightweight anonymous authentication and secure communication scheme is proposed and it only used secure one-way hash function and bitwise XOR operations when cloud, fog and user mutually authenticate each other. After the successful authentication, both fog-based participants can agree on a session key to encrypt the subsequent communication messages. The security can be ensured during authentication process by using the Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic and the performance comparisons with existing schemes demonstrate that the proposed scheme is secure and highly efficient.

New Encryption Algorithm Using Bit-Level Permutation and Non-Invertible Chaotic Map

Recently, a little research into image encryption has been used on chaotic economic maps. The current paper suggests a bit-level permutation and a non-invertible chaotic economic map to encrypt an image. Firstly, the secret key generation is linked to the plain image. So, the suggested algorithm may resist both known-plaintext and chosen-plaintext attacks. Then a bit-level permutation is performed for all the binary bits of the plain image's pixels, using the logistic map (permutation stage). It is used to improve the algorithm's security. Then pixel diffusion is applied using the 2D non-invertible chaotic economic map and bit-wise XOR operations. It is used to change the pixels' values and make them highly random. The results of the experiments and the security analyses show that the given image encryption algorithm is efficient with higher security. Some comparisons showed that the proposed algorithm outperformed many recent algorithms. Finally, the proposed algorithm may be able to withstand a variety of attacks.

Systematic Memory MDS Sliding Window Codes Over Erasure Channels

Memory maximum-distance-separable (mMDS) sliding window codes are a type of erasure codes with high erasure-correction capability and low decoding delay. In this paper, we study two types of systematic mMDS sliding window codes over erasure channels, i.e., scalar codes defined over a finite field $GF(2^{L})$ , and vector codes defined over a vector space $GF(2)^{L}$ . We first devise an efficient heuristic algorithm to produce an mMDS sliding window scalar code over relatively small $GF(2^{L})$ . Then, we investigate a special class of mMDS sliding window vector codes whose encoding/decoding are achieved by basic circular-shift and bit-wise XOR operations, and propose a general method to generate such mMDS vector codes. Our complexity analysis shows that the proposed vector codes yield much lower encoding/decoding complexity than the scalar codes. The theoretical and numerical results also demonstrate that mMDS sliding window codes dominate MDS block codes in terms of decoding delay and erasure-correction capability.

PPRQ: Privacy-Preserving MAX/MIN Range Queries in IoT Networks

Range queries are widely used in several Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications as a general strategy to improve the efficiency of the system. However, the communication patterns generated by the IoT nodes could lead to the identification of the devices satisfying the query, as well as to the disclosure of the queried data. State-of-the-art solutions to address the cited security issues rely on dedicated edge/fog nodes, whose deployment could be too expensive or challenging, especially in unattended scenarios where the installation of ad hoc locations could be difficult and mains-supply is hardly available. In this article, we propose PPRQ, a resilient, scalable, and lightweight protocol that allows privacy-preserving range queries in IoT networks. PPRQ is a probabilistic scheme that can be easily adapted to MIN, MAX, and MAX/MIN range queries, while requiring only hashing and bitwise xor operations. We show that PPRQ is robust, as it can be configured to provide over 99.9% accuracy in the query results. We also prove its resiliency against passive and active adversaries for a number of interesting and realistic scenarios. Our results are rooted in sound probability theory and supported by an extensive simulation campaign, while comparisons against state-of-the-art solutions show the flexibility and adaptability of PPRQ, especially for remote and unattended scenarios. Finally, further research directions opened up by the proposed solution are also highlighted.

Image encryption algorithm based on Tent-Dynamics coupled map lattices and diffusion of Household

This paper presents an image encryption algorithm based on Tent-Dynamics Coupled Map Lattices (TDCML) system and diffusion of Household. All aspects of the TDCML spatiotemporal chaotic system proposed in this paper meet the cryptographic characteristics and are suitable for studying image encryption. The specific image encryption algorithm first generates chaotic sequences according to the TDCML system. The image scrambling uses a cyclic shift algorithm, and the movement of each row and column is determined by the chaotic sequence. Then the image diffusion is improved according to the Household orthogonal decomposition method. Think of each column of the image matrix as a row vector, and then operate according to part of the formulas in the Household transformation to obtain a new row vector. Finally, perform the bitwise XOR operation with the specified chaotic sequence to obtain the final encrypted image. Theoretical analysis and experimental results have proved the security of this encryption algorithm.

An image encryption scheme using sequence generated by interval bisection of polynomial function

Chaos based image encryption techniques are well accepted in research communities to perform permutation at pixel/bit level using pseudo-random sequence and changes pixel positions and/or intensity values from which guessing the original image is very hard. Simple computation is the point of attraction of these type of techniques. In parallel, researchers defined permutation using some non-chaotic methods and have established similar, even better results for image encryption in comparison to chaos based techniques. In this article a non-chaotic image encryption technique is proposed. A polynomial is employed to define the pseudo-random sequence. Here, points on the polynomial are selected by repeated interval bisection method and a sequence is defined by the function value at those points. Scrambling of row/column are performed by cyclic shift using the sequence. Value Substitution and iterative XOR operation transform the pixels’ intensity. Bitwise XOR operation with a mask generated from the pseudo-random sequence adds more security to the scheme. Experimental results and security analysis prove its immunity against statistical and differential attack. Comparison of the proposed method with some existing schemes proves its superiority.

High throughput unified architecture of LEA algorithm for image encryption

Among instances when the data and image security in resource constrained environment (smart devices and the like) are to be taken into consideration, lightweight encryption algorithms accede in popularity and are deemed of to be of great merit. In devices as those of the sort mentioned, reducing both power consumption and gate count is always a prime concern. LEA, therefore, triumphs on merit, owing to its low consumption levels of hardware resources, which itself is a result of the adaption of simple modular addition, bitwise rotation and bitwise XOR (ARX) operation instead of the relatively more complex S-box technique. The algorithm in question supports keys of varying sizes three, to be precise: 128, 192 and 256-bit for the intent of providing three levels of image and data security. The hardware implementation of the LEA algorithm for the varying key sizes as mentioned above share significant kinship and hardware resources. This paper puts forward the proposition regarding a high speed low area unified architecture for LEA algorithm for three different sizes of key. The individual hardware implementations of the three key sizes tend to consume more hardware resources than those involved in the proposed unified architecture. The pipelined implementation of the proposed design improves operating frequency to a significant degree, with a little increase in the hardware costs. The design proposed in this paper notably supports three varying tile sizes, i.e. 256×256,128×128,64×64, of an input image. As resolution of an input image may not necessarily be an integer multiple of the size of tile, smaller tile sizes at the image boundary can also be handled by the same architecture. The design hereby proposed has been implemented on both UMC ASIC 0.09-μm and XC5VLX330T FPGA platforms and achieved maximum operating frequencies of 740 MHz and 292 MHz respectively. As its increasingly evident on account of the FPGA implementation outcomes, the proposed unified architecture results in vastly improved levels of operating frequency (34%, 33% and 131%) as opposed to the individually available LEA architectures (corresponding to three different key sizes: 128, 192 and 256-bit, respectively). Proposed architecture shows 28%, 35% and 45% increment in the hardware resources with respect to available LEA architectures with single key. The incorporation of the unified key generation technique and pipeline implementation of the algorithm are the main reasons for the more hardware utilization.

Representations of Generalized Self-Shrunken Sequences

Output sequences of the cryptographic pseudo-random number generator, known as the generalized self-shrinking generator, are obtained self-decimating Pseudo-Noise (PN)-sequences with shifted versions of themselves. In this paper, we present three different representations of this family of sequences. Two of them, the p and G-representations, are based on the parameters p and G corresponding to shifts and binary vectors, respectively, used to compute the shifted versions of the original PN-sequence. In addition, such sequences can be also computed as the binary sum of diagonals of the Sierpinski’s triangle. This is called the B-representation. Characteristics and generalities of the three representations are analyzed in detail. Under such representations, we determine some properties of these cryptographic sequences. Furthermore, these sequences form a family that has a group structure with the bit-wise XOR operation.