Lightweight symmetric key encryption for text using XOR operation and permutation matrix

Traditionally, symmetric key encryption has been computationally intensive, and the balance between security and computation costs has necessitated the use of systems with simpler computations and variable-sized keys. This paper introduces a lightweight technique for symmetric key encryption of text, which utilizes less complex operations such as XOR and permutation matrices. The proposed method encrypts and decrypts text based on the ASCII values of plain text characters, using two symmetric keys to provide security. The use of lightweight and computationally efficient operations like XOR and permutation matrices ensures efficient encryption. One of the advantages of this approach is that it allows for the use of any key size without increasing computational complexity, while also enhancing security. Our statistical findings demonstrate that while increasing input size increases computation complexity, increasing key size does not affect it. Thus, any key size can be used for greater security. In summary, our proposed technique provides a simple, lightweight, and efficient method for data encryption and decryption with enhanced security using variable-sized keys. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Bharati Vidyapeeth's Institute of Computer Applications and Management.