A Survey on Software Implementations of Binary Elliptic Curves on IoT Devices

Abstract

Internet-of-Things is a modern concept that provides marvelous opportunities for several innovative applications. A new environment is created by IoT devices because of having limited resources. Therefore, existing protocols are being changed, or new protocols are being adopted to fulfill requirements imposed by this new environment. Although there is a vast range of IoT applications with different needs, ensuring security is a typical need of most of these applications. Cryptographic methods play a key role in ensuring security that encounter serious difficulties in IoT concept because they demand high computational power and memory. Moreover, cryptographic practices are highly time critical. In many IoT applications, symmetric cryptographic methods are used because of easier implementation and less required computational power. On the other hand, the advantages of asymmetric cryptographic methods such as digital signature cannot be overlooked, and applying these methods in IoT concept is required. Elliptic Curve cryptography is seriously considered in IoT practices because of having shorter key length with the same security level. In this thesis, a broad survey is conducted on software implementation of binary Elliptic Curves on IoT devices. The timing results of Elliptic Curve Cryptography implementations are presented in Java on IM3000 microcontroller families. IM3000 microcontroller is a Java enabled multipurpose IoT microcontroller. The algorithms are categorized based on the improvements in Elliptic Curve Cryptography.