Analysis of Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms for Internet of Things

Abstract

The exponential advancements in the electronics field resulted in the development of small sensors with the capability to collect information inreal-time, without any human intervention. This is revolutionizing human life and also leads to many security challenges that cannot be ignored. The information collected through the massive internet of things, is analyzed to make intelligent decisions for the users. But the data accumulated can also include sensitive data that needs to be protected from detrimental attacks to maintain the privacy of the user and the integrity of the data. Thus encryption/decryption becomes a critical aspect in the Internet of Things applications; to avoid compromising the data from any intentional/unintentional attacks on the data. As the devices are highly resource-constrained, lightweight cryptographic algorithms that use less power, less memory, and have lesser computation are preferred to the traditional cryptographic methods. This paper analyzes the various symmetric ciphers in hardware architecture in terms of parameters like gate area, throughput, efficiency, memory, and complexity of the algorithm.

Keywords: Cryptography, Lightweight Algorithms, Internet of Things, Sensors, Stream Ciphers, Block Ciphers