Encryption Technologies: A Review of Recent Developments and Trends

This report provides an overview of recent advancements in encryption technologies. It begins by discussing the importance of encryption in securing data and protecting user information, and highlights the difference between symmetric-key and asymmetric encryption. It then delves into two major innovations: the development of a hardware chip for public key encryption in IoT devices, which significantly reduces power consumption and improves performance, and the advancements in quantum cryptography, which utilizes the physics of matter to create an unbreakable cryptosystem. The report references research on device-independent quantum cryptography, which enhances the security and applicability of quantum encryption methods. The report concludes by highlighting the potential of these innovations in addressing the security challenges of modern computing environments, particularly those related to IoT devices.

Running Head: Encryption Technologies
Latest advances in encryption technologies
Name
Institution

Encryption Technologies 2
Encryption is widely used in protecting user information stored in computers or being transmitted
over the internet. Its primary role in cyber security is in protecting critical data; ensuring
confidentiality, Authenticity, Integrity and Nonrepudiation (Zeadally, Das & Sklavos, 2019).
Traditionally, there have been two major encryption approaches; Symmetric-key or secret key
encryption and Asymmetric cryptography, also called public key cryptography; where two keys -
a private and public keys - are used in encryption and decryption processes.
Although encryption methods under each of the two traditional approaches – Symmetric and
Asymmetric – have largely been successful over the decades, the current new computing
paradigm requires major improvements in the encryption approaches. In particular, the
proliferation of usage of mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) requires encryption
approaches that do not degrade device performance in computing resource-constrained
environments (Zeadally, Das & Sklavos, 2019). However, convectional approaches are widely
implemented as software solutions, requiring substantial computing power and memory space;
thus limiting their usage on IoT devices.
To overcome this challenge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported the development of
a hardware chip, hardwired to perform public key encryption on IoT devices, by use of elliptic-
curve encryption. The chip is reported to consume 1/400 as much power as software execution of
the same protocol, uses a tenth (1/10) of memory and is 500 times faster (Banerjee, Juvekar,
Wright & Chandrakasan, 2018).
A second innovation in encryption is the use of quantum cryptography. Although the theory
behind quantum cryptography has been in existence for decades, recent research into it has
advanced the capabilities and security of the approach. Unlike conventional encryption
approaches – which rely on mathematics – quantum encryption relies on the physics of matter.
The method employs the quantum properties of individual photons of a wave or particle to create
an unbreakable cryptosystem.
An example of the development in quantum cryptography is the paper by, Arnon-Friedman,
Dupuis, Fawzi Renner & Vidick (2018), which describes a quantum cryptography method, which
is said to be “device-independent quantum cryptography via entropy accumulation”. The said
approach pushes the theory of quantum cryptography even higher with the introduction of an
approach that performs, regardless of the underlying device.

Encryption Technologies 3
References
Arnon-Friedman, R., Dupuis, F., Fawzi, O., Renner, R., & Vidick, T. (2018). Practical device-
independent quantum cryptography via entropy accumulation. Nature
communications, 9(1), 459.
Banerjee, U., Juvekar, C., Wright, A., & Chandrakasan, A. P. (2018, February). An energy-
efficient reconfigurable DTLS cryptographic engine for End-to-End security in iot
applications. In 2018 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference-(ISSCC) (pp.
42-44). IEEE.
Zeadally, S., Das, A. K., & Sklavos, N. (2019). Cryptographic Technologies and Protocol
Standards for Internet of Things. Internet of Things, 100075.