Ensuring the Security and Performance of IoT Communication by Improving Encryption and Decryption With the Lightweight Cipher uBlock
Chengjian Liu, Yiwei Zhang, Jiajun Xu, Jian Zhao, Shaohua Xiang
Abstract
Internet of Things (IoT) devices expect a secure communication method or protocol with communication performance that matches the network bandwidth in a public network. With the advancement of network bandwidths, such as through wireless technology 5G, encryption and decryption throughput can be the performance bottleneck of IoT communication security, as IoT devices have limited computing power. As a result, it is a challenge for IoT devices to obtain the required level of security and communication performance. In this article, we improve the encryption and decryption performance with a lightweight cipher algorithm called uBlock for IoT devices. By using sequential circuits, the encryption and decryption throughput can reach the 1 Gb/s level with 90 nm technology in our simulation environment. We can expect a more than two fold improvement in the performance with better nanotechnology from hardware vendors. Our proposed solution can achieve the required level of security and communication performance with a little power consumption.