Report on Lightweight Cryptography

Published

March 28, 2017

Author(s)

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.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 8114

Report Number

8114

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8114

Local Download

Keywords

Constrained devices, lightweight cryptography, standardization

Citation

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 27, 2025)