Lightweight Cryptography for IoT: A State-of-the-Art

Abstract: With the emergence of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) has become a center of attraction for almost all industries due to its wide range of applications from various domains. The explosive growth of industrial control processes and the industrial IoT, imposes unprecedented vulnerability to cyber threats in critical infrastructure through the interconnected systems. This new security threats could be minimized by lightweight cryptography, a sub-branch of cryptography, especially derived for resource-constrained devices such as RFID tags, smart cards, wireless sensors, etc. More than four dozens of lightweight cryptography algorithms have been proposed, designed for specific application(s). These algorithms exhibit diverse hardware and software performances in different circumstances. This paper presents the performance comparison along with their reported cryptanalysis, mainly for lightweight block ciphers, and further shows new research directions to develop novel algorithms with right balance of cost, performance and security characteristics.