SAL – A lightweight symmetric cipher for Internet-of-Things

Abstract

The modern era of computing demands high-speed performance and maximizing efficiency for commercial applications and business modules. Embedded systems and devices are unlike traditional computer systems. The computing power of the embedded device is very limited to perform a specific task, it consumes little hardware footprint and operates at electronic high speed by minimizing clock cycles and memory management. Embedded security issues and security challenges are a major concern resisting against advanced cryptanalytic attacks. In this research, we propose a new lightweight cryptographic algorithm SAL (Secure Advanced Lightweight). The algorithm is based on NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) standards and guidelines in design implementation of SAL to secure lower end of the device spectrum are internet of things (IoT), wireless sensors network (WSNs), aggregation network, pervasive devices, Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and embedded devices. SAL operates on the 64-bit block with a key size of 64-bit to 128-bit for 14 rounds of Feistel function. The internal structure of SAL powered with tiny 16-bit S-box using composite field arithmetic (CFA) technology. Our experimental results prove SAL has high efficiency and high throughput to achieve optimum performance when compared with standard cryptographic algorithms.