A Survey on Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms in IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a paradigm shift in computing, enabling ubiquitous connectivity among heterogeneous devices. It has revolutionized sectors including healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and smart cities. However, the proliferation of IoT devices introduces critical security challenges, primarily due to their resource-constrained nature and the scale of their deployment. Traditional cryptographic algorithms, designed for high-performance computing environments, are often ill-suited for IoT systems. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of lightweight cryptographic algorithms developed specifically for IoT applications. It categorizes these algorithms into symmetric, asymmetric, and hash-based techniques, analyzing them based on performance metrics such as computational efficiency, energy consumption, and memory footprint. Furthermore, this survey outlines the current research challenges, recent advancements, and open issues in the design and deployment of secure, efficient, and scalable IoT systems.