A New Hybrid Cipher based on Prime Numbers Generation Complexity: Application in Securing 5G Networks

Today’s cellular networks (known as 2G, 3G, and 4G) provide a solid foundation for connecting things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is helping people live and work smarter and take full control of their lives. In addition to providing smart devices for home automation, IoT is also critical for businesses. The security of classical cryptosystems is characterized by their simple arithmetic complexity. This type uses; shifts, arrangements, permutations, and substitutions of letters, words, or phrases to encrypt a given message. Moreover, this kind of cryptosystem is easy to break, because the complexity of their scheme is convergent. On the other hand, the security of modern cryptosystems is characterized by complex arithmetic, using the concept of keys; private keys to encrypt and public keys to decrypt. This type is hard to break because of the complexity of their scheme being divergent. This paper aims to secure the 5G networks with a new variant of the classical Polybius Checkerboard Cipher (HPCC). The system of letter substitution is based on the complexity and the divergence of private key generation. Filling a magic square with primes is an NP-hard task, which shows the complexity and divergence of the strategy adopted in this variant.