Performance Analysis of Efficient Signcryption Schemes for Low Computing Power Devices

Abstract

To design effective and efficient security solutions for these resource-constrained devices, a new class of computing devices termed as Low Computing Power Devices (LCPDs) has been defined. The main objective in doing so is to analyze the common security requirements, challenges, and possible security solutions for all kinds of LCPDs, so that common efficient security solutions for LCPDs can be developed. The first step in designing the appropriate security solutions for LCPDs is to choose the most efficient cryptographic system. Elliptic curve cryptography is such a cryptosystem which is suitable for LCPDs because it provides the desired level of security with smaller key size and parameters. In the second step, signcryption, which integrates the functionality of authentication and confidentiality logically in a single step, is applied along with elliptic curve cryptography for designing efficient security solutions for LCPDs. Based on the designed generic security framework for LCPDs, three security protocols one for each type of LCPD i.e. RFID tags, wireless sensors, and smart cards have been developed. Analysis of security functionalities has revealed that all these three security protocols satisfy the required security attributes and are also able to resist the attacks attempted over them. Analysis of computational cost has demonstrated that the proposed RFID security protocol reduces the computational cost for the tag by 33.33%, proposed security protocol for wireless sensors eats 50% less computation time on the gateway, and proposed smart card security protocol reduces the computational overhead on the smart card by 6% in comparison to the existing efficient protocols. Furthermore, the proposed security protocol for RFID reduces the storage cost of the tag by 8.3% and communication overhead on the tag by 8% while the developed smart card security protocol also reduces the communication cost of the smart cards by 34.28%, as compared to the existing efficient protocols.