The Untapped Potential of Ascon Hash Functions: Benchmarking, Hardware Profiling, and Application Insights for Secure...

Area of Science:

• Cryptography and Information Security
• Computer Science and Engineering

Background:

• Hash functions are crucial for security and data integrity in various systems.
• The Ascon family, selected for lightweight cryptography, has had its hashing modes under-evaluated empirically.
• Existing research lacks comprehensive benchmarking of Ascon-Hash256, Ascon-XOF128, and Ascon-CXOF128.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a structured empirical evaluation of Ascon's hashing and extendable-output variants.
• To assess the performance and robustness of Ascon hashes in cryptographic and application-specific contexts.
• To compare Ascon hashes against established cryptographic and non-cryptographic alternatives.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the SMHasher framework for statistical and structural robustness testing.
• Developed custom Python simulations for application-specific performance analysis (e.g., Bloom filters, Merkle trees).
• Benchmarked Ascon-Hash256, Ascon-XOF128, and Ascon-CXOF128 against SHA3, BLAKE2s, MurmurHash3, and xxHash.

Main Results:

• Ascon hash functions exhibit strong diffusion, low statistical bias, and competitive performance.
• Demonstrated suitability for resource-constrained environments like IoT devices and blockchain applications.
• Ascon-XOF variants showed effective variable-length output capabilities comparable to SHAKE.

Conclusions:

• Ascon hash functions are robust, efficient, and well-suited for lightweight cryptographic applications.
• This study provides the first comprehensive empirical analysis of Ascon hashing modes.
• Ascon hashes present a viable, structurally resilient alternative to existing hash functions in constrained systems.