A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm
Abstract Traditionally, playfair matrix encryption is done by encrypting only 8 bits characters to generate ciphers which are equal to the plaintext. Over the years researchers have proposed to incorporate other characters into the plaintext matrix in order to increase the decryption time. However,...
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| Language: | English |
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SpringerOpen
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Journal of Electrical Systems and Information Technology |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s43067-025-00217-w |
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| author | Ibrahim Lawal Musa Yusuf Adamu Sulaiman Usman Oluwasegun Ishaya Adelaiye |
| author_facet | Ibrahim Lawal Musa Yusuf Adamu Sulaiman Usman Oluwasegun Ishaya Adelaiye |
| author_sort | Ibrahim Lawal |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Traditionally, playfair matrix encryption is done by encrypting only 8 bits characters to generate ciphers which are equal to the plaintext. Over the years researchers have proposed to incorporate other characters into the plaintext matrix in order to increase the decryption time. However, these solutions have resulted to generating different ciphers and too many ciphertext, thereby increasing the computational resource utilization in terms of memory usage and the size of the ciphertext after encryption. This paper proposes a Hexadecimal Character Substitution Cipher (HCSC) algorithm aimed to reduce the computational resource utilization and reduce the size of the ciphertext after encryption thereby making the proposed algorithm suitable for deployment in mobile devices. The proposed algorithm employs confusion and diffusion to translate a plaintext into Hexadecimal equivalent swap first-order byte of first character with the last-order byte of second character and the last-order byte of the first character with the first byte order of the second character to introduce a modified 16-bit hexadecimal ciphertext. The modified ciphertext is converted into the corresponding 16-bit character representation in order to generate a lightweight ciphertext. The aim of this study was achieved by the following objectives; a design of the HCSC algorithm, an implementation of the proposed HCSC algorithm using python programming language and the evaluation of its performance in comparison with existing study. The result of the comparison showed that the confusion and diffusion introduced in HCSC algorithm has not only increased the decryption time when brute-force technique is used, but also have lower computational resource utilization and lighter in terms of weight when compared to the existing studies based on terms of 8 bits plaintext. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a3c95b8fddda4efc9ffff8efeaa41133 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2314-7172 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | SpringerOpen |
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| series | Journal of Electrical Systems and Information Technology |
| spelling | doaj-art-a3c95b8fddda4efc9ffff8efeaa411332025-08-20T03:46:00ZengSpringerOpenJournal of Electrical Systems and Information Technology2314-71722025-07-0112111610.1186/s43067-025-00217-wA lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithmIbrahim Lawal0Musa Yusuf1Adamu Sulaiman Usman2Oluwasegun Ishaya Adelaiye3Department of Cybersecurity, Bingham UniversityDepartment of Cybersecurity, Bingham UniversityDepartment of Computer Science, Bingham UniversityDepartment of Cybersecurity, Bingham UniversityAbstract Traditionally, playfair matrix encryption is done by encrypting only 8 bits characters to generate ciphers which are equal to the plaintext. Over the years researchers have proposed to incorporate other characters into the plaintext matrix in order to increase the decryption time. However, these solutions have resulted to generating different ciphers and too many ciphertext, thereby increasing the computational resource utilization in terms of memory usage and the size of the ciphertext after encryption. This paper proposes a Hexadecimal Character Substitution Cipher (HCSC) algorithm aimed to reduce the computational resource utilization and reduce the size of the ciphertext after encryption thereby making the proposed algorithm suitable for deployment in mobile devices. The proposed algorithm employs confusion and diffusion to translate a plaintext into Hexadecimal equivalent swap first-order byte of first character with the last-order byte of second character and the last-order byte of the first character with the first byte order of the second character to introduce a modified 16-bit hexadecimal ciphertext. The modified ciphertext is converted into the corresponding 16-bit character representation in order to generate a lightweight ciphertext. The aim of this study was achieved by the following objectives; a design of the HCSC algorithm, an implementation of the proposed HCSC algorithm using python programming language and the evaluation of its performance in comparison with existing study. The result of the comparison showed that the confusion and diffusion introduced in HCSC algorithm has not only increased the decryption time when brute-force technique is used, but also have lower computational resource utilization and lighter in terms of weight when compared to the existing studies based on terms of 8 bits plaintext.https://doi.org/10.1186/s43067-025-00217-wPlayfairCiphertextHexadecimalShufflingEncryptionDecryption |
| spellingShingle | Ibrahim Lawal Musa Yusuf Adamu Sulaiman Usman Oluwasegun Ishaya Adelaiye A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm Journal of Electrical Systems and Information Technology Playfair Ciphertext Hexadecimal Shuffling Encryption Decryption |
| title | A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm |
| title_full | A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm |
| title_fullStr | A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm |
| title_full_unstemmed | A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm |
| title_short | A lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution Cipher algorithm |
| title_sort | lightweight 256 hexadecimal character substitution cipher algorithm |
| topic | Playfair Ciphertext Hexadecimal Shuffling Encryption Decryption |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1186/s43067-025-00217-w |
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