Title: Secured IoT node design through protected ITULES family group-II (ULWC) implementation against physical attacks for ubiquitous computing

Authors: Swapnil Sutar; Priyanka Mekala; U. Surya Kameswari

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, AP, India ' C.R. Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad, TS, India ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, AP, India

Abstract: The next-generation communication systems will heavily rely on tiny connected devices to sense, transmit, and receive data using IoT infrastructure worldwide. The low-resourced internet devices are vulnerable due to accessibility, although they are equipped with encryption standards, highlighting the need for secure IoT nodes design. Encryption standards for the resource-constrained devices were implemented with mathematical cryptanalysis. Despite being fortified with encryption standards, nodes are still vulnerable to side-channel attacks (SCA). Hence, evaluating the proposed ULWCs against SCA is essential to validate the IoT node security concerning the open deployment scenarios. This paper proposes the design of a secure IoT node equipped with ultra-lightweight ciphers (ITULES group-II) resilient to SCA. A differential cryptanalysis method is adopted to simulate the sensitive data leakage after implementing the ITULES group-II family on chosen devices. Through rigorous evaluation and masking techniques, this research demonstrates the resilience of secure IoT nodes against SCA while optimising resource utilisation.

Keywords: ultra-lightweight cipher; ULWC; internet of things; IoT; side channel attack; SCA; differential power attack; DPA; node security; physical tampering; resource-constrained; cryptanalysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJES.2023.139205

International Journal of Embedded Systems, 2023 Vol.16 No.4, pp.288 - 311

Received: 04 Feb 2023
Accepted: 26 Jan 2024
Published online: 25 Jun 2024 *

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