Smart Edge Computing

10A Study of Ultra-lightweight Ciphers and Security Protocol for Edge Computing

With the urge to increase safety and security while transmitting information over the Internet, we need to shift our concern towards the security protocols. A security protocol (cryptographic protocol or encryption protocol) is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. Cryptographic protocols are widely used for secure application-level data transport. A lightweight protocol refers to any protocol that has a lesser and leaner payload when being used and transmitted over a network connection. As defined by NIST, a lightweight protocol must be within 2,500 gate equivalents (GEs). It is simpler, faster and easier to manage than other communication protocols used on a local or wide area network.

On the other hand, ultra-lightweight protocols are protocols that have a much lower overhead and require minimum hardware and simple operations when transmitted through a network connection. Designing protocols in the ultra-lightweight setting is challenging as it requires approximately 1,500 GEs. It is very likely that a large percentage of tomorrow’s interconnected world will consist of ultra-lightweight computing elements. Ultra-lightweight protocols rely only on basic arithmetic and logical operations (modular addition, and, or, xor, etc.). Devices that require low memory, low power supply ...