Advanced Data Encryption Business Standard

Discuss about the Advanced Data Encryption Business Standard.

The process of encryption refers the conversion of and plain text or a readable data to a cipher text or an unreadable data with the help of different algorithm. Encryption is a process of securing the data by controlling the access to the data only to registered candidates (Biham & Shamir, 2012).  Wimax stands for ‘Worldwide Interperability for Microwave access ’. WiMax is a technology for wireless data communication that provides high-speed internet connection in a wide area. Therefore, it is essential for ensuring the security of this connection. Different encryption standard are used for ensuring the security of this network.

The three different encryption standards that can be used for WiMax network includes 3DES, AES and RSA. These three encryption standards are elaborated in the following table-

Triple DES	AES	RSA
·       Triple DES or 2DES is the most widely used encryption standard for WiMax. ·       It uses three different keys each of length 56-bit for ensuring high level of encryption. ·       It uses a symmetric key algorithm three times for each bloc in order to ensure extra layer of protection (Singh, 2013) ·       The advantage of 3DES is that,  the key length remains fixed and therefore, it is easier to encrypt and decrypt a data. ·       However, there is a disadvantage of using triple DES. Due to the inclusion of three-phase encryption, the process becomes slower in compared to other encryption algorithms. ·       AES is an advanced version of 3DES and is more widels used for ensuring protection in Wimax networks. ·       3DES however, is the most important encryption standard even today.	·       Advanced encryption standard or AES is another encryption standard that is most widely used in encryption of WiMax network. It is an advanced form of encryption as it used different keys of length 128-bit, 192 bit and 256 bit for data encryption (Karthik & Muruganandam, 2014). ·       Like 3DES, AES also uses a symmetric bloc cipher for the process of encryption (Daemen & Rijmen, 2013.). ·       AES is another widely used algorithm in WiMax network apart from 2DES. ·       This is an effective encryption standard for conversion of an readable data to cipher text, so that it cannot be accessed by the unauthorized persons. ·       AES algorithm was developed from CCMP ·       The encryption and decryption in AES is much faster than 3DES and it does not involve 3 phased encryption. ·       Moreover, it can be implemented using very little memory space. ·       Implementation of 3DES requires a dedicated processor and therefore, is costlier than 3DES.	·       RSA or Rivest Shamir Aldemat is an asymmetric key algorithm that is widely used in encryption of the data. ·       This is an asymmetric key algorithm as it used both public and private key in encryption and decryption. If public key is used for encryption purpose, private key is used for decryption. ·       This is one of the most secure encryption techniques as it makes use of 3 large prime numbers in encryption and decryption of the data (Nagar & Alshamma, 2012, March). ·       RSA is a complex algorithm and is less used in encryption of WiMax network in comparison to 3DES and AES.

Wireless personal area network or WPAN is a short distance area wireless network of interconnecting devices used in an individual person’s workspace. This technology is mainly used for providing wireless connection to the different devices. The major advantage of using WPAN technologies include short range communication, low power consumption and can be implemented in a very low cost.

The two major WPAN technologies include ZigBee and Bluetooth. Of these two major technologies, Bluetooth is the most widely used WPAN network. It is a network of very short-range wireless connections and up to 8 electronic devices can be connected in the single network at a time. ZigBee is however a simplex WPAN technology in comparison to Bluetooth and is simple to install as well (Costanzo et al., 2012). The cost of implementation of ZigBee is low as well. However, the sped of data transfer is slower in case of Zigbee than in Bluetooth.

These two WPAN network are however associated with a some major security concerns. The security challenges associated with Bluetooth and WPAN networks are elaborated in the following paragraphs-

The different security challenges associated with the Bluetooth Technology of WPAN network are listed below-

Bluebugging is one of the major security challenge associated with the Bluetooth network. In this security threat, the hacker breaks into the network with an intention of exploting the content of the network without the knowledge of the owner. This is one of the major security concerns associated with a Bluetooth network.

Bluesnarfing is another security concern associated with a Bluetooth network. It refers to that condition when an attacker gets an unauthorized access to the network and its related contents (Minar & Tarique, 2012).

Blue jacking is another security issue associated with a Bluetooth network. In this type of attack, the attacker sends messages incorporated with malicious links to the users, that is automatically installed and allows the attacker to gain access to the contents of the network.

These three are the major security concerns associated with the Bluetooth. The security issues associated with ZigBee technology is elaborated in the following paragraph.

The major security concerns associated with ZigBee technology are elaborated below-

ZigBee network architecture is very simple and therefore it becomes easier for the attacker to break into the system and gaining physical access to the confidential data present in the network.

Imitating anode of ZigBee network is another security concern associated with a ZigBee network (Zillner & Strobl, 2015).

The process of energy harvesting deals with derivation of energy from external resources, which includes harvesting of energy from solar, wind, kinetic, hydropower energy and so on. Wireless sensor networks can make use of these energy-harvesting techniques in order to eliminate the limitation of WSNs in the field of energy. Wireless sensor networks are gaining a lot of popularity due to its pervasive nature and its use in IOT (Shaikh & Zeadally, 2016). Therefore, proper implementation of different energy harvesting techniques can have an increasing use in wireless sensor networks. Energy harvesting is necessary for wireless sensor networks as in an event of depletion of the energy sensor node the whole network fails to perform its intended responsibilities. In order to obtain a continuous performance of from WSNs a continuous energy flow is necessary, which can be obtained by harvesting energy from different resources (Ulukus et al., 2015).

With the help of energy harvesting, the nodes of the wireless devices can be supplied with a continuous energy flow and therefore eliminates the problems faced with the energy leakages in Wireless networks.  Furthermore, the use of energy harvesting techniques can help in reducing the use of conventional energy resources. The different energy harvesting techniques that can be used for eliminating the problems associated with the wireless sensor networks are elaborated below (Shaikh & Zeadally, 2016)-

Radio frequency – In this process of energy harvesting, radio waves are harvested, which are later converted into DC power after conditioning.

Solar Energy: solar energy is harvested in order to eliminate the issues associated with the wireless sensor networks.

Thermal energy harvesting:  This technique of energy harvesting harvests the heat energy, which is then converted into electrical enerhy by following Seebeck effect

Flow based- the rotational energy of turbines and rotors are harvested in order to generate electricity. This electricity can be used for impending all the energy related problems associated with Wireless Sensor networks.

Wind energy: the energy of the moving wind is harvested and can be used to generate electricity.

References

Biham, E., & Shamir, A. (2012). Differential cryptanalysis of the data encryption standard. Springer Science & Business Media.

Costanzo, S., Galluccio, L., Morabito, G., & Palazzo, S. (2012, October). Software defined wireless networks: Unbridling sdns. In Software Defined Networking (EWSDN), 2012 European Workshop on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Daemen, J., & Rijmen, V. (2013). The design of Rijndael: AES-the advanced encryption standard. Springer Science & Business Media.

Karthik, S., & Muruganandam, A. (2014). Data Encryption and Decryption by using Triple DES and performance analysis of crypto system. International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research, 24-31.

Minar, N. B. N. I., & Tarique, M. (2012). Bluetooth security threats and solutions: a survey. International Journal of Distributed and Parallel Systems, 3(1), 127.

Nagar, S. A., & Alshamma, S. (2012, March). High speed implementation of RSA algorithm with modified keys exchange. In Sciences of Electronics, Technologies of Information and Telecommunications (SETIT), 2012 6th International Conference on (pp. 639-642). IEEE.

Shaikh, F. K., & Zeadally, S. (2016). Energy harvesting in wireless sensor networks: A comprehensive review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 55, 1041-1054.

Singh, G. (2013). A study of encryption algorithms (RSA, DES, 3DES and AES) for information security. International Journal of Computer Applications, 67(19).

Ulukus, S., Yener, A., Erkip, E., Simeone, O., Zorzi, M., Grover, P., & Huang, K. (2015). Energy harvesting wireless communications: A review of recent advances. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 33(3), 360-381.

Zillner, T., & Strobl, S. (2015). ZigBee exploited: The good the bad and the ugly.