Overview of Network Security

overview of network security

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Table of Contents
Introduction about the lightweight cryptography...................................................................................1
Goal of light weighted cryptography.................................................................................................1
Potential security threats in systems using low-power devices..............................................................1
Working mechanism of lightweight cryptography.................................................................................2
Lightweight cryptographic algorithms...................................................................................................3
Current and Future challenges in lightweight cryptography..................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction about the lightweight cryptography
Lightweight cryptography is a trending topic of discussion from last few years; it can be said
as a trade- off between light weightiness and security. Light weighted cryptography is used to
enhance the security by using block ciphers, lightweight stream ciphers, hash functions and
other authenticated encryption. The term weight reflects the amount of resources that is
necessary in terms of software and hardware. The software weight is linked with the time
complexity and speed of running the algorithms. The weight of algorithms should be light so
that computation could be done fast. In case of hardware the number of logic gates used
should be less and implementation should be in a primitive manner. Light weighted
cryptography used limited amount of energy and make sure that devices never run out of
battery. Light weighted cryptography offers high security for low end devices and it requires
efficient hardware performance and low overall cost. This will build by strong crypto system.
It is important in terms of network security and constraint resources. Power minimization is
also achieved by using light weighted cryptography. The objective of this is to achieve high
level of performance. In this report, the goal of light weighted cryptography is discussed
along with the potential threats faced by the low power devices and listed. The working
mechanism of light weighted cryptography is also discussed.
Goal of light weighted cryptography
The goal of light weighted cryptography is to enable wide range of modern application like
smart meters, wireless security system, monitoring system and high tech system [1]. They are
implemented in the system to make communication secure and is used to manage power
consumption.

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Potential security threats in systems using low-power devices
There is risk associated with potential security in system using low power device is that they
do not have high bandwidth [2]. There are chances of physical attack on its components that
remain unsupervised. The main constraint threats in terms of security are that information
gets leaked that violates confidentiality, integrity and confidentiality. If low power devices
will be used there are more chances of frauds as security cannot be applicable strongly. In
case of using low bandwidth devices there arises the issue of discoverability [3]. Due to this
modes become vulnerable and there is no fix identification of devices that gives the issue of
authentication. In case of low power device authentication is performed by using challenge
response through link key.
One of the major threats that are observed in low power devices are inadequate energy,
memory and processing node resources. These constraints are quiet critical as large scale of
devices gets rolled out due to low power [4].
Second threat can be autonomous operations cannot be performed as it is self-organizing
which leads to poor directed traffic.
The other problem is of synchronizing security situations of sleepy nodes that is listed in the
last subsection. Difficulty is faced at time of authentication as these nodes may not receive
updates that can cause security breach [5]. Correspondingly, the issues of minimal manual
configuration, delayed addition of nodes and network topology changes have a complicated
key management.