An overview of memristive cryptography

Smaller, smarter and faster edge devices in the Internet of things era demands secure data analysis and transmission under resource constraints of hardware architecture. Lightweight cryptography on edge hardware is an emerging topic that is essential to ensure data security in near-sensor computing systems such as mobiles, drones, smart cameras, and wearables. In this article, the current state of memristive cryptography is placed in the context of lightweight hardware cryptography. The paper provides a brief overview of the traditional hardware lightweight cryptography and cryptanalysis approaches. The contrast for memristive cryptography with respect to traditional approaches is evident through this article, and need to develop a more concrete approach to developing memristive cryptanalysis to test memristive cryptographic approaches is highlighted.Comment: European Physical Journal: Special Topics, Special Issue on "Memristor-based systems: Nonlinearity, dynamics and applicatio

PICO : An Ultra Lightweight and Low Power Encryption Design for Ubiquitous Computing

An ultra-lightweight, a very compact block cipher ‘PICO’ is proposed. PICO is a substitution and permutation based network, which operates on a 64 bit plain text and supports a key length of 128 bits. It has a compact structure and requires 1877 GEs. Its innovative design helps to generate a large number of active S - boxes in fewer rounds which can thwart the linear and differential attacks on the cipher. PICO shows good performance on both the hardware and the software platforms. PICO consumes only 2504 bytes of Flash memory which is less than the ultra-lightweight cipher PRESENT. PICO has a very strong substitution layer (S-box) which not only makes the design robust but also introduces a great avalanche effect. PICO has a strong and compact key scheduling which is motivated by the latest cipher SPECK designed by NSA. PICO consumes 28 mW of dynamic power which is less than the PRESENT cipher (38 mW). The security analysis of PICO and its performance as an ultra-lightweight cipher are presented.

Symmetric lightweight primitives: (Design and) Cryptanalysis

International audienc

Lightweight Cryptography

International audienc

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

GRANULE: An Ultra lightweight cipher design for embedded security

In this paper we proposed an ultra-lightweight cipher GRANULE. It is based on Feistel network which encrypts 64 bits of data with 80/128 bits of key. GRANULE needs very less memory space as compared to existing lightweight ciphers .GRANULE needs 1288 GEs for 80 bit and 1577 GEs for 128 bit key size. It also shows good resistance against linear and differential cryptanalysis. GRANULE needs very small footprint area and provides robust secure design which thwart attacks like biclique attack, zero correlation attack, meet in the middle attack ,key schedule attack and key collision attack. GRANULE is having a strong S-box which is the key designing aspect in any cipher design. In this paper GRANULE is proposed with 32 rounds which are enough to provide resistance against all possible types of attacks. GRANULE consumes very less power as compared to other modern lightweight ciphers. We believe GRANULE cipher is the best suited cipher for providing robust security in applications like IoT

A Survey of ARX-based Symmetric-key Primitives

Addition Rotation XOR is suitable for fast implementation symmetric –key primitives, such as stream and block ciphers. This paper presents a review of several block and stream ciphers based on ARX construction followed by the discussion on the security analysis of symmetric key primitives where the best attack for every cipher was carried out. We benchmark the implementation on software and hardware according to the evaluation metrics. Therefore, this paper aims at providing a reference for a better selection of ARX design strategy