Novel Physically-Embedded Data Encryption for Embedded Device

Abstract

Data encryption is the most important way to provide security in hostile environment. Nearly all of the existing data encryption techniques require a lot of arithmetic and logical computations, which makes their deployment in embedded devices very difficult. To realize firm data encryption without much computation, a novel scheme of physically-embedded data encryption is proposed in this paper. The physically-embedded data encryption extracts the unique and unclonable values that are possessed by the physical device intrinsically, and produces the secret from these values to accomplish the process of data encryption. Because it does not execute arithmetic and logical operations, it is very appropriate to embedded devices with restricted computing resources and computing abilities. At the same time, it provides high assurance of data protection due to the distinct properties of physical effects. One specific design of physically-embedded data encryption is given in this paper, and real physical instantiation of such design is tested. The experiment results show its validity and feasibility. Hence, the proposed physically-embedded data encryption should become a promising substitution of existing encryption techniques for embedded devices.