Modern and Lightweight Component-based Symmetric Cipher Algorithms: A Review

Information security, being one of the corner stones of network and communication technology, has been evolving tremendously to cope with the parallel evolution of network security threats. Hence, cipher algorithms in the core of the information security process have more crucial role to play here, with continuous need for new and unorthodox designs to meet the increasing complexity of the applications environment that keep offering challenges to the current existing cipher algorithms. The aim of this review is to present symmetric cipher main components, the modern and lightweight symmetric cipher algorithms design based on the components that utilized in cipher design, highlighting the effect of each component and the essential component among them, how the modern cipher has modified to lightweight cipher by reducing the number and size of these components, clarify how these components give the strength for symmetric cipher versus asymmetric of cipher. Moreover, a new classification of cryptography algorithms to four categories based on four factors is presented. Finally, some modern and lightweight symmetric cipher algorithms are selected, presented with a comparison between them according to their components by taking into considerations the components impact on security, performance, and resource requirements

A New 128-Bit Block Cipher

The evolvement of technology have resulted in a number of new proposals done on block ciphers such as KAMFEE, KAMKAR, ARIA, BLOWFISH256, DESL, REBC2, DSDP and etc. Even though there have been so much development of the block cipher, the industry still requires another block cipher as long as security features are met. Every country has different requirements when requesting block cipher so there is no limit in developing them. According to the National IT Council (NlTC) report on "Securing Malaysia Sovereignty in the CyberWorld" provided by Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia, they have outlined critical areas in which new and additional research and development is needed to increase the protection of the national information infrastructure. One of the critical areas is, secured communication which helps to protect the confidentiality and integrity of information during transmission and storage. Secured communication can be achieved by encrypting and hiding data transmission when it is stored on a system. One of the areas which have been identified as priority with respect to secured communications is, conventional cryptography which provides the fundamental security and privacy in the information society. Towards that and after reviewing related research, in this research we propose to come up with a new 128-bit block cipher cryptographic algorithm which shall meet the security requirements. This block cipher uses 128-bit for the key length and block size. It is an involution substitution and permutation encryption network (SPN). This block cipher uses only basic operations, key dependent S-box and XOR IS together so that it can be efficiently implemented on various platforms. The strength of this system is measured by NIST Statistical Test which evaluate from the point of view of the randomness of the block cipher output. From the results, this new block cipher has successfully generated randomness of the block cipher output for data ranging from 1 ,000,000 to 6,000,000 bits. This means that the new block cipher is secured to be used for data ranging from 1 ,000,000 to 6,000,000 bits. This block cipher is suitable to be applied to small devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. The existence of this new 128-bit block cipher algorithm will increase the protection of the national information infrastructure and also will contribute as an alternative to other cryptographic algorithms in security in the computing industry

KLEIN: A New Family of Lightweight Block Ciphers

Resource-efficient cryptographic primitives become fundamental for realizing both security and efficiency in embedded systems like RFID tags and sensor nodes. Among those primitives, lightweight block cipher plays a major role as a building block for security protocols. In this paper, we describe a new family of lightweight block ciphers named KLEIN, which is designed for resource-constrained devices such as wireless sensors and RFID tags. Compared to the related proposals, KLEIN has advantage in the software performance on legacy sensor platforms, while in the same time its hardware implementation can also be compact

A 3-Subset Meet-in-the-Middle Attack: Cryptanalysis of the Lightweight Block Cipher KTANTAN

status: publishe

Towards Finding the Best Characteristics of Some Bit-oriented Block Ciphers and Automatic Enumeration of (Related-key) Differential and Linear Characteristics with Predefined Properties

In this paper, we investigate the Mixed-integer Linear Programming (MILP) modelling of the differential and linear behavior of a wide range of block ciphers. We point out that the differential behavior of an arbitrary S-box can be exactly described by a small system of linear inequalities. ~~~~~Based on this observation and MILP technique, we propose an automatic method for finding high probability (related-key) differential or linear characteristics of block ciphers. Compared with Sun {\it et al.}\u27s {\it heuristic} method presented in Asiacrypt 2014, the new method is {\it exact} for most ciphers in the sense that every feasible 0-1 solution of the MILP model generated by the new method corresponds to a valid characteristic, and therefore there is no need to repeatedly add valid cutting-off inequalities into the MILP model as is done in Sun {\it et al.}\u27s method; the new method is more powerful which allows us to get the {\it exact lower bounds} of the number of differentially or linearly active S-boxes; and the new method is more efficient which allows to obtain characteristic with higher probability or covering more rounds of a cipher (sometimes with less computational effort). ~~~~~Further, by encoding the probability information of the differentials of an S-boxes into its differential patterns, we present a novel MILP modelling technique which can be used to search for the characteristics with the maximal probability, rather than the characteristics with the smallest number of active S-boxes. With this technique, we are able to get tighter security bounds and find better characteristics. ~~~~~Moreover, by employing a type of specially constructed linear inequalities which can remove {\it exactly one} feasible 0-1 solution from the feasible region of an MILP problem, we propose a method for automatic enumeration of {\it all} (related-key) differential or linear characteristics with some predefined properties, {\it e.g.}, characteristics with given input or/and output difference/mask, or with a limited number of active S-boxes. Such a method is very useful in the automatic (related-key) differential analysis, truncated (related-key) differential analysis, linear hull analysis, and the automatic construction of (related-key) boomerang/rectangle distinguishers. ~~~~~The methods presented in this paper are very simple and straightforward, based on which we implement a Python framework for automatic cryptanalysis, and extensive experiments are performed using this framework. To demonstrate the usefulness of these methods, we apply them to SIMON, PRESENT, Serpent, LBlock, DESL, and we obtain some improved cryptanalytic results

Revisiting Lightweight Block Ciphers: Review, Taxonomy and Future directions

Block ciphers have been extremely predominant in the area of cryptography and due to the paradigm shift towards devices of resource constrained nature, lightweight block ciphers have totally influenced the field and has been a go-to option ever since. The growth of resource constrained devices have put forth a dire need for the security solutions that are feasible in terms of resources without taking a toll on the security that they offer. As the world is starting to move towards Internet of Things (IoT), data security and privacy in this environment is a major concern. This is due to the reason that a huge number of devices that operate in this environment are resource constrained. Because of their resource-constrained nature, advanced mainstream cryptographic ciphers and techniques do not perform as efficiently on such devices. This has led to the boom in the field of \u27lightweight cryptography\u27 which aims at developing cryptographic techniques that perform efficiently in a resource constrained environment. Over the period of past two decades or so, a bulk of lightweight block ciphers have been proposed due to the growing need and demand in lightweight cryptography. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art lightweight block ciphers, present a comprehensive design niche, give a detailed taxonomy with multiple classifications and present future research directions