Identity-Based Cryptography on IoT devices: balancing security and efficiency for modern use cases

Identity-Based Cryptography (IBC) provides a revolutionary approach to public-key cryptography, since it enables message encryption without the need of previously distributed keys. Using identities, e.g., email addresses or serial numbers, as public keys, IBC simplifies key management and reduces the reliance on certificate authorities providing a promising lightweight solution for modern Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. Moreover, leveraging elliptic curves and pairings as cryptographic building blocks, Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) offers strong security with small key sizes, which makes it even more attractive for resource-constrained IoT devices. This paper evaluates the resource requirements, i.e., execution time and memory, of IBE protocols by conducting experiments on mid-class IoT devices, i.e., Raspberry Pi3B+ and Pi4B+. We provide insights regarding the potential of IBC for sensitive data confidentiality in modern use cases, such as remote patient monitoring, drone-based data collection and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication.