TTEA: designing a quantum-ready and energy-conscious encryption model for secure IoT environments

Area of Science:

• Cryptography and Network Security
• Internet of Things (IoT) Security
• Embedded Systems

Background:

• Resource-constrained IoT devices face challenges balancing security needs with hardware limitations.
• Existing lightweight encryption algorithms like TEA and Speck have vulnerabilities and high overhead.
• There is a critical need for secure yet energy-efficient cryptographic solutions for IoT.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the Two-Stage Encryption Approach (TTEA), a novel cryptographic framework designed for IoT environments.
• To address the trade-off between robust security and hardware constraints in IoT devices.
• To offer a validated solution for secure and energy-efficient IoT deployments.

Main Methods:

• Developed TTEA featuring a [Formula: see text] bit-sliced S-box for diffusion and differential attack resistance.
• Implemented an adaptive key scheduling mechanism adjusting complexity based on device power states.
• Evaluated TTEA on IoT platforms (ESP32, Raspberry Pi) and performed security analyses.

Main Results:

• TTEA reduced energy consumption by 39% and memory by 40% compared to TEA.
• Achieved 20% faster execution speeds and demonstrated a 48.5% avalanche effect.
• Confirmed resilience against cryptanalysis, side-channel attacks, and quantum threats (with CRYSTALS-Kyber).

Conclusions:

• TTEA provides a significant improvement in energy efficiency and performance for IoT devices.
• The framework offers robust security, including post-quantum resilience.
• TTEA effectively bridges the gap between advanced security requirements and the limitations of IoT hardware.