Green cryptography: energy performance optimization of 3DES

Secure communication is a key requirement for several small wireless devices in the form of smart-card readers and sensors (Wander, et al., 2005). Being small in size, such devices are often constrained by limited battery capacity and are thus adversely affected by resource intensive security mechanisms. One widely used cryptographic algorithm for securing communication is triple-DES or 3DES, but is however considered as one of the most energy inefficient algorithms (Ruangchaijatupon & Krishnamurthy, 2001; El-Fishawy & Abu Zaid, 2007; Salama, et al., 2011; Toldinas, et al., 2010; Mandal, 2012). Therefore, it is critical to optimize the energy performance of this algorithm so as to better tailor it for such small wireless devices (Daemen & Rijmen, 2001). This paper investigates into the energy performance optimization of the 3DES encryption algorithm and proposes an energy lightweight version of the same algorithm called Lite-3DES, meant for small devices operating within wireless environments. Studies have shown that cryptographic algorithm functions can be written in more efficient manner to consume lesser electrical energy for encryption or decryption of the same data sample (Napp, et al., 2012). To improve its energy performance, four key methods were applied to the original 3DES algorithm based on previous studies.