Implementation of Password Hashing on Embedded Systems with Cryptographic Acceleration Unit

Abstract

In this modern world where the proliferation of electronic devices associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) grows day by day, security is an imperative issue. The criticality of the information linked to the various electronic devices connected to the Internet forces developers to establish protection mechanisms against possible cyber-attacks. When using computer equipment or servers, security mechanisms can be applied without having problems with the number of resources associated with this activity; the opposite is the case when implementing such mechanisms on embedded systems. The objective of this document is to implement password hashing on a FRDM-K82F development board with ARM® Cortex™-M4 processor. It describes the basic criteria necessary to aim at moderate levels of security in specific purpose applications; that can be developed taking advantage of the hardware cryptographic acceleration units that these embedded systems have. Performance analysis of the implemented hash function is also presented, considering the variation in the number of iterations performed by the development board. The validation of the correct functioning of the hashing scheme using the SHA-256 algorithm is carried out by comparing the results obtained in real-time versus an application developed in Python software using the PyCryptodome library.

Flexible and Energy-Efficient Crypto-Processor for Arbitrary Input Length Processing in Blockchain-Based IoT Applications

“…A hash function generates a unique and irreversible output for a given input data, making it suitable for various security applications, including password encryption, image encryption, and digital signatures [1]- [3]. For example, the SHA-256 hash function generates a 256-bit hash value and is commonly used for password storage and digital signature verification [4]. In addition to their conventional use in security applications, hash functions have emerged as a fundamental and integral component of blockchain technology.…”