Resource-Aware Cryptography: An Analysis of Lightweight Cryptographic Primitives

Abstract

With the increased use of highly constrained interconnected devices in various areas like healthcare, sensor networks, the internet of things (IoT), etc., the need for security and proper encryption of data in such devices has grown as well. To ease the integration of security into these devices, it is reasonable to standardize some primitives. Despite there being several cryptographic algorithms to safely encrypt data, they are mainly designed for heavier use and they not only consume a lot of energy, but also require a lot of processing power and space. To provide secure data transfer and storage while allowing implementation on smaller, constrained devices, various lightweight cryptographic primitives have been developed and implemented. In this paper, we first describe the constraints that must be followed to claim a lightweight design, then we analyze the design as well as security and cryptanalysis of some recently proposed state of the art primitives that are competing to be chosen as industry standards. Finally, we also compare the performance of each of these primitives when implemented on microcontrollers and categorize them according to their design, functionalities, claimed security and respective performance. Finally, we present various insights and observations based on our study. © The Author(s).