Internet of Things (IoT) has brought about a new horizon in the field of pervasive computing and integration of heterogeneous objects connected to the network. The broad nature of its applications requires a modular architecture that can be rapidly deployed. Alongside the increasing significance of data security, much research has focused on simulation-based encryption algorithms. Currently, there is a gap in the literature on identifying the effect of encryption algorithms on timing and energy consumption in IoT applications. This research addresses this gap by presenting the design, implementation, and practical evaluation of a rapidly deployable IoT architecture with embedded data security. Utilizing open-source off-the-shelf components and widely accepted encryption algorithms, this research presents a comparative study of Advanced Encryption Standards (AES) with and without hardware accelerators and an eXtended Tiny Encryption Algorithm (XTEA) to analyze the performance in memory, energy, and execution time. Experimental results from implementation in multiple IoT applications has shown that utilizing the AES algorithm with a hardware accelerator utilizes the least amount of energy and is ideal where timing is a major constraint, whereas the XTEA algorithm is ideal for resource constrained microcontrollers. Additionally, software implementation of AES on 8-bit PIC architecture required 6.36x more program memory than XTEA.
Keywords: AES; IoT security; XTEA; block ciphers; edge computing; modular architecture.