Measurement Based Analysis of Cryptographic Algorithms for Embedded Real-Time Platforms

In battery-powered security-critical embedded platforms, security and energy are the two main concerns. In this paper, the efforts are made to identify energy-related characteristics of common security algorithms for data-sensitive embedded real-time platforms. Unlike traditional researches, this paper focuses on the influences of size of protected data on energy consumption of security algorithms. An analysis framework on potential features of energy consumption from the angles of speed, time and data size is presented. The energy features of most popular cryptographic algorithms including asymmetric and hash algorithms are well practiced All the analysis is based on protected data size measured by a processor which runs security algorithms under LINUX. This paper could provide some useful information to help the design of security-critical applications in embedded real-time platforms.