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Implementing RSA for sensor nodes in smart cities

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Abstract

In smart city construction, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are normally deployed to collect and transmit real-time data. The nodes of the WSN are embedded facility that integrated sensors and data processing modules. For security and privacy concerns, cryptography methods are required for data protection. However, the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cryptosystem, known as the the most popular and deployed public key algorithm, is still hardly implemented on embedded devices because of the intense computation required from its inherent arithmetic operations. Even though, different methods have being proposed for more efficient RSA implementations such as utilizing the Chinese remainder theorem, various modular exponentiation methods, and optimized modular arithmetic methods. In this paper, we propose an efficient multiplication for long integers on the sensor nodes equipped with 16-bit microcontrollers. Combined with this efficient multiplication, we obtain a faster Montgomery multiplication. The combined optimized Montgomery multiplication, the Chinese remainder theorem, and the m-ary exponentiation method allowed for execution times of less than 44.6 × 106 clock cycles for RSA decryption, a new speed record for the RSA implementation on MSP430 microcontrollers.

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Acknowledgements

Lirong Qiu has been supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 61672553, No. 51375504). Geovandro Pereira is partially supported by the NSERC CREATE Training Program in Building a Workforce for the Cryptographic Infrastructure of the 21st Century (CryptoWorks21) and Public Works and Government Services Canada. Hwajeong Seo is supported by the ICT R&D program of MSIP/IITP (B0717-16-0097, Development of V2X Service Integrated Security Technology for Autonomous Driving Vehicle).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Engineering School, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China

    Lirong Qiu

  2. SnT, University of Luxembourg, Maison du Nombre 6, Avenue de la Fonte, L-4364, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Zhe Liu

  3. Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Geovandro C. C. F. Pereira

  4. Hansung University, 389 Samseondong 2(i)-ga, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, South Korea

    Hwajeong Seo

Authors
  1. Lirong Qiu
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  2. Zhe Liu
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  3. Geovandro C. C. F. Pereira
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  4. Hwajeong Seo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhe Liu.

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Qiu, L., Liu, Z., C. F. Pereira, G.C. et al. Implementing RSA for sensor nodes in smart cities. Pers Ubiquit Comput 21, 807–813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-017-1044-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-017-1044-y

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