Lightweight Cryptography Research Articles

Tides of Blockchain in IoT Cybersecurity.

This paper surveys the implementation of blockchain technology in cybersecurity in Internet of Things (IoT) networks, presenting a comprehensive framework that integrates blockchain technology with intrusion detection systems (IDS) to enhance IDS performance. This paper reviews articles from various domains, including AI, blockchain, IDS, IoT, and Industrial IoT (IIoT), to identify emerging trends and challenges in this field. An analysis of various approaches incorporating AI and blockchain demonstrates the potentiality of integrating AI and blockchain to transform IDS. This paper's structure establishes the foundation for further investigation and provides a blueprint for the development of IDS that is accessible, scalable, transparent, immutable, and decentralized. A demonstration from case studies integrating AI and blockchain shows the viability of combining the duo to enhance performance. Despite the challenges posed by resource constraints and privacy concerns, it is notable that blockchain is the key to securing IoT networks and that continued innovation in this area is necessary. Further research into lightweight cryptography, efficient consensus mechanisms, and privacy-preserving techniques is needed to realize all of the potential of blockchain-powered cybersecurity in IoT.

Advancing IoT Security: A Comprehensive Survey of Lightweight Cryptography Solutions

Advancing IoT Security: A Comprehensive Survey of Lightweight Cryptography Solutions

Semi-Permanent Stuck-At Fault injection attacks on Elephant and GIFT lightweight ciphers

Fault attacks pose a potent threat to modern cryptographic implementations, particularly those used in physically approachable embedded devices in IoT environments. Information security in such resource-constrained devices is ensured using lightweight ciphers, where combinational circuit implementations of SBox are preferable over look-up tables (LUT) as they are more efficient regarding area, power, and memory requirements. Most existing fault analysis techniques focus on fault injection in memory cells and registers. Recently, a novel fault model and analysis technique, namely Semi-Permanent Stuck-At (SPSA) fault analysis, has been proposed to evaluate the security of ciphers with combinational circuit implementation of Substitution layer elements, SBox. In this work, we propose optimized techniques to recover the key in a minimum number of ciphertexts in such implementations of lightweight ciphers. Based on the proposed techniques, a key recovery attack on the NIST lightweight cryptography (NIST-LWC) standardization process finalist, Elephant AEAD, has been proposed. The proposed key recovery attack is validated on two versions of Elephant cipher. The proposed fault analysis approach recovered the secret key within 85 − 240 ciphertexts, calculated over 1000 attack instances. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on fault analysis attacks on the Elephant scheme. Furthermore, an optimized combinational circuit implementation of Spongent SBox (SBox used in Elephant cipher) is proposed, having a smaller gate count than the optimized implementation reported in the literature. The proposed fault analysis techniques are validated on primary and optimized versions of Spongent SBox through Verilog simulations. Further, we pinpoint SPSA hotspots in the lightweight GIFT cipher SBox architecture. We observe that GIFT SBox exhibits resilience towards the proposed SPSA fault analysis technique under the single fault adversarial model. However, eight SPSA fault patterns reduce the nonlinearity of the SBox to zero, rendering it vulnerable to linear cryptanalysis. Conclusively, SPSA faults may adversely affect the cryptographic properties of an SBox, thereby leading to trivial key recovery. The GIFT cipher is used as an example to focus on two aspects: i) its SBox construction is resilient to the proposed SPSA analysis and therefore characterizing such constructions for SPSA resilience and, ii) an SBox even though resilient to the proposed SPSA analysis, may exhibit vulnerabilities towards other classical analysis techniques when subjected to SPSA faults. Our work reports new vulnerabilities in fault analysis in the combinational circuit implementations of cryptographic protocols.

Depth-Optimized Quantum Circuits for ASCON: AEAD and HASH

Quantum computing advancements pose security challenges for cryptography. Specifically, Grover’s search algorithm affects the reduction in the search complexity of symmetric-key encryption and hash functions. Recent efforts have been made to estimate the complexity of Grover’s search and evaluate post-quantum security. In this paper, we propose a depth-optimized quantum circuit implementation for ASCON, including both symmetric-key encryption and hashing algorithms, as a part of the lightweight cryptography standardization by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). As far as we know, this is the first implementation of a quantum circuit for the ASCON AEAD (Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data) scheme, which is a symmetric-key algorithm. Also, our quantum circuit implementation of the ASCON-HASH achieves a reduction of more than 88.9% in the Toffoli depth and more than 80.5% in the full depth compared to the previous work. As per our understanding, the most effective strategy against Grover’s search involves minimizing the depth of the quantum circuit for the target cipher. We showcase the optimal Grover’s search cost for ASCON and introduce a proposed quantum circuit optimized for depth. Furthermore, we utilize the estimated cost to evaluate post-quantum security strength of ASCON, employing the relevant evaluation criteria and the latest advancements in research.

Securing IoT devices with fast and energy efficient implementation of PRIDE and PRESENT ciphers

The rise of low-power, cost-efficient internet-connected devices has led to a need for lightweight cryptography. The lightweight block cipher PRIDE, designed by Martin R. Albrecht, is one of the most efficient ciphers designed for IoT-constrained environments. It is useful for connected devices, requires fewer resources to implement, and has high performance. PRIDE is a software-oriented lightweight cipher optimized for microcontrollers. This paper focuses on the FPGA implementation of the PRIDE cipher by keeping throughput, energy, and power consumption metrics focused. The paper also presents a novel and simpler diagrammatical view of a Matrix Layer implementation of the PRIDE cipher. We also implemented the PRESENT cipher using the same metrics. We analyzed different design metrics on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and compared the metrics of the PRIDE implementation with the well-known cipher PRESENT. This gives us an insight into the efficiency and reliability of PRIDE in IoT-constrained environments. We also proposed different architectures of the PRIDE cipher for 16-bit and 32-bit datapaths.

Algebraic Cryptanalysis of Ascon Using MRHS Equations

Abstract Ascon is a family of lightweight authenticated encryption and hashing algorithms, which is a finalist in the NIST Lightweight Cryptography competition. We study the Ascon algorithm from the perspective of algebraic cryptanalysis based on the MRHS representation of the cipher. We call such an approach an MRHS cryptanalysis. We represent the system on the gate level (focusing on individual AND-gates) and the S-box level (basing MRHS equations on 5-bit S-boxes). We compare the results from the application of two custom MRHS solvers. The RZ solver is based on linear algebra and exhaustive search. The HC solver is based on adaptive bit-flipping with restarts. We show that both the choice of the solver and the choice of the system representation influence the total complexity of the attack. On the other hand, these choices do not change the fundamental properties of the attack, such as scaling with the amount of information the attacker possesses. A similar assessment holds for using a scaled-down version of Ascon for the experiments. Our method can be used for the experimental evaluation of cipher designs against algebraic attacks.

Challenges and Future Trends of Cryptography in Internet of Things

The incorporation of cryptographic techniques is crucial for guaranteeing data privacy and security processed additionally sent inside IOT ecosystems, particularly as the IOT keeps growing. Examining problems including resource limitations, scalability, and the dynamic nature of IOT environments, this research paper explores the complex obstacles that cryptographic solutions confront considering the IOT. Lightweight cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, and blockchain integration are some of the new trends and future prospects in cryptographic research that are examined in this study in an effort to address these issues. This work offers a useful viewpoint for scholars, practitioners, and legislators engaged in the constantly changing field of cryptographic protocols inside the IOT framework by clarifying current problems and projecting future advancements. Keywords— Cryptography, Internet of Things (IOT), Security,Challenges

CCA Security with Short AEAD Tags

The size of the authentication tag represents a significant overhead for applications that are limited by bandwidth or memory. Hence, some authenticated encryption designs have a smaller tag than the required privacy level, which was also suggested by the NIST lightweight cryptography standardization project. In the ToSC 2022, two papers have raised questions about the IND-CCA security of AEAD schemes in this situation. These papers show that (a) online AE cannot provide IND-CCA security beyond the tag length, and (b) it is possible to have IND-CCA security beyond the tag length in a restricted Encode-then-Encipher framework. In this paper, we address some of the remaining gaps in this area. Our main result is to show that, for a fixed stretch, Pseudo-Random Injection security implies IND-CCA security as long as the minimum ciphertext size is at least as large as the required IND-CCA security level. We also show that this bound is tight and that any AEAD scheme that allows empty plaintexts with a fixed stretch cannot achieve IND-CCA security beyond the tag length. Next, we look at the weaker notion of MRAE security, and show that two-pass schemes that achieve MRAE security do not achieve IND-CCA security beyond the tag size. This includes SIV and rugged PRPs.

Security Analysis of the Symmetric Cryptosystem TinyJambu

Symmetric cryptography provides the best examples of cryptosystems to be applied in lightweight environments (e.g., IoT). A representative example is the cryptosystem TinyJambu, one of the ten finalists in the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Project. It is an authentication encryption with associated data scheme that is extremely lightweight and fast. In this work, we analyze the security of TinyJambu from two distinct and non-symmetric points of view: (1) the improvement of the best cryptanalytical attack found in the literature and (2) a randomness analysis of the generated sequences. Concerning item (1), we launched a differential forgery attack with probability 2−65.9487, which was improved considerably compared with previous numerical results. Concerning item (2), we analyzed the degree of randomness of the TinyJambu keystream sequences with a complete and powerful battery of statistical tests. This non-symmetric study shows the weakness of TinyJambu against cryptanalytic attacks as well as the strength of TinyJambu against statistical analysis.

Wireless IoT Networks Security and Lightweight Encryption Schemes- Survey

— IoT networks suffered from different kinds of attacks. The main issue of IoT security is the limitation of its node’s energy ability to perform big tasks such as encryption. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamic landscape of lightweight cryptography research, particularly in the context of real-time traffic security and Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The aim of this research is to identify the gaps in IoT research efforts and draw up ways to address it. The objectives are highlighting the global collaboration and standardization initiatives that have shaped its development. Also, it emphasizes the importance of balancing cryptographic strength with practical considerations such as encryption latency, energy efficiency, and memory constraints, particularly crucial in the context of resource constrained IoT devices. Furthermore, it highlights innovative approaches proposed by researchers to enhance the security of cryptographic operations while minimizing overhead and ensuring compatibility with evolving wireless environments. It calls for sustained research efforts to address these challenges and foster the development of robust cryptographic solutions capable of meeting the stringent security requirements of modern digital ecosystems.

Improved differential fault analysis of Grain128-AEAD

The number of smart devices connected to the Internet has been constantly increasing, and as a result, lightweight cryptography (LWC) has become more important in the past decade. The Lightweight Cryptography (LWC) Project is an initiative taken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to standardize such LWC algorithms. Grain128-AEAD, which was submitted to the NIST LWC project, is an encryption algorithm that provides both confidentiality and integrity assurance. Third-party security analysis of the submitted ciphers is an important aspect of the evaluation of the submission to the NIST LWC project. Although several pieces of existing research, such as the bit-flipping attack, random fault attack, and deterministic random fault attack, have examined the security of Grain128-AEAD, there is still room for improvement in the fault attack models of these studies. This work aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the security margin of Grain128-AEAD against a series of improved differential fault attacks. In this study, we developed a probabilistic random fault attack and applied it to Grain128-AEAD. As an improvement of the existing research, a probabilistic approach can be applied to a more relaxed moderate control attack model. The existing moderate control model assumes the fault to be injected within any bit of a given byte, whereas the faults in our improved approach can be injected within any bits of a two-byte/four-byte segment, thereby relaxing the fault precision. The results indicate that the improved moderate control requires 388 keystreams for the two-byte model and 279 for the four-byte model to identify the target fault locations for implementing a state recovery attack. The relaxed fault attack models presented in this work are more practical to implement; hence, the findings of this research have improved the existing studies and narrowed the current research gap on the fault attack models of Grain128-AEAD. % To maintain consistency in terminology, "Grain-128AEAD" has been revised to "Grain128-AEAD" in both the abstract and the main text. Please confirm this revision.

A Survey on Transforming Healthcare with IoMT : The Power of Connected Medical Devices

This thorough analysis examines current developments in medical technology, with an emphasis on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and its uses. It covers IoMT's contribution in creating wearable internet monitors for dispersed monitoring systems, addressing pregnancy-related issues, and is divided into four subject groups. Along with blockchain adaption, it also highlights privacy and dependability in IoMT-based health monitoring systems. The paper also emphasizes the contributions of IoMT to healthcare diagnosis and monitoring, including machine learning and edge-AI-based cardiovascular health monitoring and fall prediction. It also covers data science and healthcare informatics techniques, such as using lightweight cryptography to ensure real-time security in remote patient monitoring and identifying unusual user behavior. IoMT has the potential to transform patient care, diagnostics, and data-driven decision-making across a range of healthcare areas, as the paper highlights overall.

A Lightweight Image Cryptosystem for Cloud-Assisted Internet of Things

Cloud computing and the increasing popularity of 5G have greatly increased the application of images on Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The storage of images on an untrusted cloud has high security and privacy risks. Several lightweight cryptosystems have been proposed in the literature as appropriate for resource-constrained IoT devices. These existing lightweight cryptosystems are, however, not only at the risk of compromising the integrity and security of the data but also, due to the use of substitution boxes (S-boxes), require more memory space for their implementation. In this paper, a secure lightweight cryptography algorithm, that eliminates the use of an S-box, has been proposed. An algorithm termed Enc, that accepts a block of size n divides the block into L n R bits of equal length and outputs the encrypted block as follows: E=L⨂R⨁R, where ⨂ and ⨁ are exclusive-or and concatenation operators, respectively, was created. A hash result, hasR=SHA256P⨁K, was obtained, where SHA256, P, and K are the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA−256), the encryption key, and plain image, respectively. A seed, S, generated from enchash=Enchashenc,K, where hashenc is the first n bits of hasR, was used to generate a random image, Rim. An intermediate image, intimage=Rim⨂P, and cipher image, C=Encintimage,K, were obtained. The proposed scheme was evaluated for encryption quality, decryption quality, system sensitivity, and statistical analyses using various security metrics. The results of the evaluation showed that the proposed scheme has excellent encryption and decryption qualities that are very sensitive to changes in both key and plain images, and resistance to various statistical attacks alongside other security attacks. Based on the result of the security evaluation of the proposed cryptosystem termed Hash XOR Permutation (HXP), the study concluded that the security of the cryptography algorithm can still be maintained without the use of a substitution box.

Lightweight Cryptography for Internet of Things: A Review

The paper examines the rising significance of security in Internet of Things (IoT) applications and emphasizes the need for lightweight cryptographic solutions to protect IoT devices. It acknowledges the growing prevalence of IoT in various fields, where sensors collect data, and computational systems process it for action by actuators. Due to IoT devices' resource limitations and networked nature, security is a concern. The article compares different lightweight cryptographic block cipher algorithms to determine the best approach for securing IoT devices. It also discusses the merits of hardware versus software solutions and explores potential security threats, including intrusion and manipulation. Additionally, the article outlines future work involving the implementation of the trusted Advanced Standard Encryption block cipher in IoT devices, including its use in quick-response (QR) code scanning and messaging platforms. It acknowledges existing drawbacks and suggests areas for improvement in IoT system performance and security.

Recent Lightweight cryptography (LWC) based security advances for resource-constrained IoT networks

Recent Lightweight cryptography (LWC) based security advances for resource-constrained IoT networks

Wireless IoT Networks Security and Lightweight Encryption Schemes- Survey

— IoT networks suffered from different kinds of attacks. The main issue of IoT security is the limitation of its node’s energy ability to perform big tasks such as encryption. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamic landscape of lightweight cryptography research, particularly in the context of real-time traffic security and Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The aim of this research is to identify the gaps in IoT research efforts and draw up ways to address it. The objectives are highlighting the global collaboration and standardization initiatives that have shaped its development. Also, it emphasizes the importance of balancing cryptographic strength with practical considerations such as encryption latency, energy efficiency, and memory constraints, particularly crucial in the context of resource constrained IoT devices. Furthermore, it highlights innovative approaches proposed by researchers to enhance the security of cryptographic operations while minimizing overhead and ensuring compatibility with evolving wireless environments. It calls for sustained research efforts to address these challenges and foster the development of robust cryptographic solutions capable of meeting the stringent security requirements of modern digital ecosystems.

Efficient implementations of CRAFT cipher for Internet of Things

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) highlights the importance of lightweight cryptography in maintaining security. However, enhancing performance while ensuring the same level of security remains a significant challenge. This paper presents two innovative architectures for the CRAFT lightweight block cipher, aiming to enhance performance without compromising security. The novel Serial and Unrolled architectures are introduced to achieve low area usage and high throughput, respectively. Specifically, the Serial architecture reduces the datapath from 64-bit to 4-bit, significantly decreasing the area. The Unrolled architecture, on the other hand, minimizes latency from 32 to 16. Additionally, Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solvers are employed to identify a lower-cost area implementation of the S-Box. The proposed designs underwent evaluation on three distinct FPGA platforms: Artix-7, Kintex-7, and Spartan-7. The results show that the low area design reduces area usage by 10.16% compared to the previous design. Additionally, the S-Box implementation achieves a significant area reduction of 28.9%. On the other hand, the unrolled design enhances the maximum throughput by 40.53% compared to the previous design. Therefore, the proposed designs could offer enhanced performance while maintaining security for IoT devices.

Hardware study and implementation of image encryption algorithm based on a hyperchaotic key generator

In today’s interconnected world, digital data transmissions are an integral part of our communication systems. Connected objects are commonly used in digital life, however, they can be vulnerable to hacking and personal data theft due to inadequate security. To address the size and capability limitations of existing embedded devices, lightweight cryptography has been developed. This paper presents a hardware implementation of a lightweight cryptographic method using VHDL and FPGAs to secure digital information, specifically images. The proposed algorithm is a block cipher scheme that operates on blocks of 128-bit length and employs chaos based generator-based. The cryptosystem includes a whitening operation, random permutation, and key-dependent Substitution box. The proposed hardware implementation of the algorithm was validated using a Xilinx FPGA-Zynq platform and can secure different gray-scale images while maintaining low power usage, a high frequency of 160.6098 MHz, and high throughput of 11314.917 Mbps. The cryptosystem is shown to be effective against statistical and differential attacks, and key sequences are tested using the NIST SP 800–22 test suite. The algorithm’s robustness with respect to Shannon’s theory and Chaos is discussed, emphasizing its high level of security and performance.

Attack Analysis on Hybrid-SIMON-SPECKey Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithm for IoT Applications

Objective: To perform attack analysis on new developed hybrid-SIMON-SPECKey lightweight cryptographic algorithms and compare its strength with existing SIMON and SPECK Lightweight cryptographic algorithm. Methods: A hybrid-SIMON-SPECKey algorithm is the combination of round function of SIMON and key scheduling of SPECK algorithm. Both SIOMN & SPECK algorithm are used for securing resource constrained devices. In this research work, avalanche effect method is used to analyze attack resistance property of algorithm. Findings: Newly developed Hybrid algorithm shows better results in terms of execution time and memory consumption. As compared to SIMON, hybrid version of algorithm consumes 50% less time and 20% less memory, which makes it efficient. Strict Avalanche criteria for SIMON is 89%, that of SPECK is 90% and in case of hybrid algorithm, it is 90% at start position but when the character is flipped or changed at the end position of plain text then SAC is more (87%) in case of hybrid algorithm as compared as SIMON and SPECK algorithms. Hence, newly developed algorithm showed improved results with equally resistance to the attack as compared to SIMON & SPECK. Novelty and applications: The novelty lies in the creation of a hybrid lightweight cryptographic algorithm that combines the feistel structure of SIMON with the key scheduling function of SPECK. This hybrid approach aims to leverage the strengths of both algorithms, potentially providing a more robust and efficient solution for resource-constrained IoT devices. In section 3.1 comparative analysis is done which show that hybrid algorithm outperforms in term of time and memory consumption as well a strength of newly developed hybrid algorithm is evaluated using avalanche effect which shows that it is at par with base algorithms. Keywords: Attack Analysis, Cipher Code, Decryption, Encryption, Lightweight Cryptography, Iot Devices, And Resource Constraint Devices

A Survey on Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms in IoT

Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) will soon penetrate every aspect of human life. Several threats and vulnerabilities are present due to the different devices and protocols used in an IoT system. Conventional cryptographic primitives or algorithms cannot run efficiently and are unsuitable for resource-constrained devices in IoT. Hence, a recently developed area of cryptography, known as lightweight cryptography, has been introduced, and over the years, numerous lightweight algorithms have been suggested. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of the lightweight cryptography field and considers various popular lightweight cryptographic algorithms proposed and evaluated over the past years for analysis. Different taxonomies of the algorithms and other associated concepts were also provided, which helps new researchers gain a quick overview of the field. Finally, a set of 11 selected ultra-lightweight algorithms are analyzed based on the software implementations, and their evaluation is carried out using different metrics.