Performance Evaluation of Block Ciphers for Wireless Sensor Networks

Security is one of the major concerns in many Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications. A number of cryptographic algorithms have been developed to provide security services in WSNs. However, selecting an energy-efficient and lightweight cipher is a challenging task due to resource constrained nature of sensor nodes. Systematic evaluation of cryptographic algorithms is, therefore, necessary to provide a good understanding of the trade-off between security performance and operational cost. In this paper, we have examined five block ciphers: Skipjack, Corrected Block Tiny Encryption Algorithm (XXTEA), RC5, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and Chaotic-Map and Genetic-Operations based Encryption Algorithm (CGEA). The performance of these ciphers is evaluated on Arduino Pro and Mica2 sensor motes. Then the memory usage, operation time, and computational cost are compared. Finally, some recommendations are provided on evaluated block ciphers and implementation platforms.