NIST Finalizes 'Lightweight Cryptography' Standard to Protect Small Devices

Summary

Lightweight cryptography is designed to protect information created and transmitted by the Internet of Things, as well as for other miniature technologies. Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST It’s the little things that matter most, as the saying goes, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has got their back. NIST’s newly finalized lightweight cryptography standard provides a defense from cyberattacks for even the smallest of networked electronic devices. Released as Ascon-Based Lightweight Cryptography Standards for Constrained Devices (NIST Special Publication 800-232), the standard contains tools designed to protect information created and transmitted by the billions of devices that form the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as other small electronics, such as RFID tags and medical implants. Miniature technologies like these often possess far fewer computational resources than computers or smartphones do, but they still need protection from cyberattacks. The answer is lightweight cryptography, which is designed to defend these sorts of resource-constrained devices.“We encourage the use of this new lightweight cryptography standard wherever resource constraints have hindered the adoption of cryptography,” said NIST computer scientist Kerry McKay, who co-led the project with her NIST colleague Meltem Sönmez Turan. “It will benefit industries that build devices ranging from smart home appliances to car-mounted toll registers to medical implants. One thing these electronics have in common is the need to fine-tune the amount of energy, time and space it takes to do cryptography. This standard fits their needs.” The standard is built around a group of cryptographic algorithms in the Ascon family, which NIST selected in 2023 as the planned basis for its lightweight cryptography standard after a multiround public review process. Ascon was developed in 2014 by a team of cryptographers from Graz University of Technology, Infineon Technologies and Radboud Univers...