Lightweight Cryptography for IoT Devices: Performance vs. Security Trade-Offs Using a Modified Honey Bee Algorithm

Abstract

With the increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there is a growing demand for lightweight cryptographic solutions that can be effective and work under extreme resource limitations. A traditional cryptographic technique requires a lot of processing power, energy, and memory, and thus cannot be used effectively in smart, small IoT devices needing immediate response as well. The article introduces the CA-MHBA (Crypto-Aware Modified Honey Bee Algorithm) for the purpose of optimizing cryptographic parameters on a dynamic basis and ensuring smart lightweight encryption at the same time. The algorithm was able to lower the time needed for conducting encryption, power and memory consumptions, as well as network latencies while keeping the main security metrics unchanged that include diffusion level, key sensitivity, and ability to resist brute-force and differential attacks. The experiments showed that the HBA-LWC framework has significant advantages over traditional and conventional lightweight and standard cryptography in execution time (improved by up to 74%), power consumption (going down by 42%), memory consumption (decreased by 27%), and scalability in large networks.  The authors mention possible directions for further investigations related to side-channel resistant algorithms, post-quantum lightweight cryptography, adaptive cryptographic techniques, and artificial intelligence-based threat detection.

Keywords: Lightweight Cryptography, IoT Security, Honey Bee Algorithm, Optimization, Energy-Efficient Encryption, Adaptive Cryptographic Framework