A Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithm for IoT Devices based on Hybrid Architecture

This paper introduces a new lightweight cryptographic algorithm with a hybrid architecture that is specifically designed for securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The hybrid architecture uses a unique combination of one-hot encoding (OHE) and substitution-permutation network (SPN) structures to encrypt data in a computationally and memory-efficient manner. The OHE technique is a method for representing categorical variables with a binary vector that provides confusion properties in the ciphertext. The SPN networks perform both linear and nonlinear operations to enhance the avalanche effect in generated round keys and encrypted ciphertext. The memory usage and execution cycle of the proposed cipher have been evaluated using the benchmark tool ‘Evaluation of Lightweight Cryptography Algorithms’ (FELICS). MATLAB is also utilized to test the key sensitivity of several encrypted and decrypted images using histograms and correlation graphs. The results show that the cipher provides a high level of security while being suitable for use on resource-constrained IoT devices. Hence, the proposed cipher can be a security solution for various IoT applications, such as smart homes, healthcare, and industrial automation.