Design and Implementation of Certificateless Cryptography for IoT Applications

Neam Fares, Bo Wang, Spiridon Bakiras

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This work introduces a cryptographic module for IoT devices that addresses the security vulnerabilities that come with their widespread adoption. Four core cryptographic modules are implemented, including data confidentiality, message integrity, authentication, and secure communication channels. Specifically, the SHA-256 hashing and AES128-CBC/GCM cipher modules are very efficient, with an execution time of just a few μs. For the key exchange functionality, we opted to leverage Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and, in particular, the BLS12-381 curve, because it enables the implementation of certificateless public-key cryptography. We demonstrate the performance of the Hash to Curve and pairing operations that are required by both the BLS12-381 digital signature scheme and the session key agreement protocol. The pairing operation consists of two main steps, namely, the Miller loop and the final exponentiation. On a 10 MHz clock frequency (simulated in FPGA), a pairing operation between two elliptic curve points takes around 3.68s to complete. Under the BLS12-381 digital signature scheme, the module for signing messages takes 0.76s, while the module for verifying signatures takes 7.35s. Finally, we identified that the parallel point-scalar multiplication technique was the most efficient, and the module for generating a session key on an IoT node takes around 4.03s. To summarize, this paper highlights the importance of addressing the security risks associated with IoT devices and presents a low-cost implementation of hardware-based cryptography for achieving robust security.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2023 IEEE 66th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2023
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages933-937
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9798350302103
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event2023 IEEE 66th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2023 - Tempe, United States
Duration: 6 Aug 20239 Aug 2023

Publication series

NameMidwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems
ISSN (Print)1548-3746

Conference

Conference2023 IEEE 66th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityTempe
Period6/08/239/08/23

Keywords

  • Certificateless cryptography
  • FPGA
  • Hardware security

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