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Kerry McKay, Lawrence E. Bassham, Meltem Sonmez Turan, Nicky Mouha
Abstract
NIST-approved cryptographic standards were designed to perform well using general-purpose computers. In recent years, there has been increased deployment of small computing devices that have limited resources with which to implement cryptography. When current NIST-approved algorithms can be engineered to fit into the limited resources of constrained environments, their performance may not be acceptable. For these reasons, NIST started a lightweight cryptography project that was tasked with learning more about the issues and developing a strategy for the standardization of lightweight cryptographic algorithms. This report provides an overview of the lightweight cryptography project at NIST, and describes plans for the standardization of lightweight cryptographic algorithms.
McKay, K.
, Bassham, L.
, Sonmez Turan, M.
and Mouha, N.
(2017),
Report on Lightweight Cryptography, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8114, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=922743
(Accessed October 6, 2025)