LIGHTWEIGHT CRYPTOGRAPHIC ALGORITHM IMPLEMENTATION IN A MICROCONTROLLER SYSTEM

Abstract

Abstract: With the development of mobile devices and the advent of smartphones, the Internet has become part of everyday life. Any category of information about weather, flight schedule, etc. it is just a click away from the keyboard. This availability of data has led to a continuous increase in connectivity between devices, from any corner of the world. Combining device connectivity with systems automation allows the collection of information, its analysis and implicitly decision-making on the basis of information. Their introduction and continued expansion of devices that communicate in networks (including the Internet) have made security issues very important devices as well as for users. One of the main methodologies that ensures data confidentiality is encryption, which protects data from unauthorized access, but at the cost of using extensive mathematical models. Due to the nature of IoT devices, the resources allocated to a device can be constrained by certain factors, some of which are related to costs and others to the physical limitations of the device. Ensuring the confidentiality of data requires the use of encryption algorithms for these interconnected devices, which provide protection while maintaining the operation of that device. The need for these types of algorithms has created conditions for the growth and development of the concept of lightweight encryption, which aim to find encryption systems that can be implemented on these categories of devices, with limited hardware and software requirements. The paper proposes a lightweight cryptographic algorithm implemented on a microcontroller system, comparing its performances with those of the already existing system (based on x86).