Review of the Approaches and Methods for Lightweight Data Hashing
Keywords:
lightweight cryptography, hash function, Merkle–Damgård construction, sponge construction, hashing scheme, cryptographic characteristics, technical characteristicAbstract
This paper presents a review of modern approaches to the design of hash functions, which are a fundamental element of cryptographic protection in the systems with limited hardware capabilities, particularly in Internet of Things (IoT) devices, embedded microcontrollers, and sensor networks. The relevance of the study is driven by the intensive development of these technologies and the necessity of ensuring a high level of security with minimal resource consumption. The main objective of the work is to analyze the structural features, cryptographic properties, and technical characteristics of tools that implement lightweight hash functions. Two fundamentally different approaches to hash function design are considered: the iterative Merkle–Damgård construction and the sponge construction.
The study covers the analysis of 12 hash functions and their families that employ one of these constructions. Each hash function was evaluated according to key characteristics, such as hardware complexity, hash output length, cryptographic resistance, throughput, and energy consumption. Thus, comparative data were obtained that made it possible to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each hash function in the context of their implementation for lightweight systems. To generalize the results, an integral efficiency coefficient is proposed, which accounts for the influence of four key parameters with corresponding weights.
The comparative analysis showed that hash functions based on the Merkle–Damgård construction, although demonstrating an acceptable level of cryptographic resistance, require significant hardware costs, which limits their application in resource-constrained systems. In contrast, algorithms developed based on the sponge construction demonstrated the highest values of the integral efficiency coefficient, confirming the best compromise between security, performance, and hardware costs. Specifically, SPONGENT-88 stands out with minimal hardware requirements, and HVH provides high throughput and cryptographic resistance with comparatively low costs. The DeeR-Hash and Hash-One hash functions, which use combined schemes, require the lowest hardware costs for 160-bit hash values while maintaining a high level of cryptographic resistance. The analysis confirms that further research in the direction of the sponge construction and combined schemes with shift registers is the most promising, as these approaches provide the best ratio between cryptographic resistance, performance, and hardware efficiency.
References
S. Sinha, “State of IoT 2024: Number of connected IoT devices growing 13% to 18.8 billion globally,” IoT Analytics, 3 вер. 2024. [Electronic resource]. Available: https://iot-analytics.com/number-connected-iot-devices/ . Accessed: 21.07.2025.
A. Mileva, V. Dimitrova, and O. Kara, “Catalog and Illustrative Examples of Lightweight Cryptographic Primitives,” in Security of Ubiquitous Computing Systems, G. Avoine, J. Hernandez-Castro, Ed. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2021, с. 21-47. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10591-4 .
R. Kalaria, A. S. M. Kayes, W. Rahayu, and E. Pardede, “A secure mutual authentication approach to fog computing environment,” Comput. & Secur., vol. 111, pp. 102-483, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2021.102483 .
K.-L. Tsai, F.-Y. Leu, L.-L. Hung, and C.-Y. Ko, “Secure session key generation method for LoRaWAN servers,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 54631-54640, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2978100 .
D. I. Afryansyah, M. Magfirawaty, and K. Ramli, “The Development and Analysis of TWISH: A Lightweight-Block-Cipher-TWINE-Based Hash Function,” in 2018 Thirteenth Int. Conf. Digit. Inf. Manage. (ICDIM), Berlin, Germany, Sep. 24-26, 2018. IEEE, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDIM.2018.8847056 .
D. N. Gupta, and R. Kumar, “Sponge based lightweight cryptographic hash functions for IoT applications,” in 2021 Int. Conf. Intell. Technol. (CONIT), Hubli, India, Jun. 25-27, 2021. IEEE, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1109/CONIT51480.2021.9498572.
V. A. Thakor, M. A. Razzaque, and M. R. Khandaker, “Lightweight Cryptography Algorithms for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices: A Review, Comparison and Research Opportunities,” IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 28177-28193, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3052867 .
Z. A. Al-Odat, E. M. Al-Qtiemat, and S. U. Khan, “An efficient lightweight cryptography hash function for big data and IoT applications,” in 2020 IEEE Cloud Summit, Harrisburg, PA, Oct. 21-22, 2020. IEEE, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEECloudSummit48914.2020.00016 .
M. Rana, Q. Mamun, and R. Islam, “Lightweight cryptography in IoT networks: A survey,” Future Gener. Comput. Syst., vol. 129, pp. 77-89, Apr. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2021.11.011 .
W. H. G. Wali, and N. C. Iyer, “Power, Performance and Area Analysis of Sponge Based Lightweight HASH Function,” Int. J. Elect. Electron. Eng. & Telecommun., pp. 245-256, 2023. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijeetc.12.4.245-256 .
S. Windarta, Suryadi, K. Ramli, B. Pranggono, and T. S. Gunawan, “Lightweight cryptographic hash functions: Design trends, comparative study, and future directions,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 82272-82294, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3195572 .
В. І. Селезньов, «Аналіз методів малоресурсного гешування,» на LII науково-технічна конференція підрозділів ВНТУ. Вінниця, 2023. [Електронний ресурс]. Режим доступу: https://conferences.vntu.edu.ua/index.php/all-fitki/all-fitki-2023/paper/download/18664/15557 . Дата звернення: 25.07.2025.
I. El Hanouti, H. El Fadili, S. Hraoui, and A. Jarjar, “A Lightweight Hash Function for Cryptographic and Pseudo-Cryptographic Applications,” in Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Singapore: Springer Singap., 2021, pp. 495-505. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6893-4_46 .
S. Badel, et all., “Armadillo: A multi-purpose cryptographic primitive dedicated to hardware,” in Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 2010, S. Mangard, F.-X. Standaert, Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2010, pp. 398-412. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15031-9_27 .
A. Bogdanov, G. Leander, C. Paar, A. Poschmann, M. J. B. Robshaw, and Y. Seurin, “Hash functions and RFID tags: Mind the gap,” in Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 2008, Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2008, pp. 283-299. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85053-3_18 .
A. Y. Poschmann, “Lightweight cryptography cryptographic engineering for a pervasive world,” 2009. [Electronic resource]. Available: https://eprint.iacr.org/2009/516.pdf .
S. Hirose, K. Ideguchi, H. Kuwakado, T. Owada, B. Preneel, and H. Yoshida, “An AES Based 256-bit Hash Function for Lightweight Applications: Lesamnta-LW,” IEICE Trans. Fundam. Electron. Commun. Comput. Sci., E95-A, no. 1, pp. 89-99, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1587/transfun.E95.A.89 .
A. Bogdanov, M. Knezevic, G. Leander, D. Toz, K. Varici, and I. Verbauwhede, “SPONGENT: The Design Space of Lightweight Cryptographic Hashing,” IEEE Trans. Comput., vol. 62, no. 10, pp. 2041-2053, Oct. 2013. https://doi.org/10.1109/TC.2012.196 .
J. Guo, T. Peyrin, and A. Poschmann, “The photon family of lightweight hash functions,” in Advances in Cryptology – CRYPTO 2011, P. Rogaway, Ed. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2011, pp. 222-239. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22792-9_13 .
J.-P. Aumasson, L. Henzen, W. Meier, and M. Naya-Plasencia, “QUARK: A lightweight hash,” in Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 2010, S. Mangard, F.-X. Standaert, Ed. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, с. 1-15, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15031-9_1 .
J.-P. Aumasson, L. Henzen, W. Meier, and M. Naya-Plasencia, “Quark: A lightweight hash,” J. Cryptol., vol. 26, № 2, pp. 313-339, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00145-012-9125-6 .
T. P. Berger, J. D’Hayer, K. Marquet, M. Minier, and G. Thomas, “The GLUON family: A lightweight hash function family based on FCSRs,” in Progress in Cryptology – AFRICACRYPT 2012, Springer, pp. 306-323, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31410-0_19 .
J. Choy, et all., “SPN-Hash: Improving the provable resistance against differential collision attacks,” in Progress in Cryptology – AFRICACRYPT 2012, Springer, pp. 270-286, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31410-0_17 .
Y. Huang, S. Li, W. Sun, X. Dai, and W. Zhu, “HVH: A lightweight hash function based on dual pseudo-random transformation,” in Security, Privacy, and Anonymity in Computation, Communication, and Storage, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 492-505, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68884-4_41 .
M. K. S. Manyam, and K. N. Rao, “Performance analysis of THF: A novel lightweight cryptography hash function,” J. Theor. Appl. Inf. Technol., vol. 103, № 9, 2025. [Electronic resource]. Available: https://www.jatit.org/volumes/Vol103No9/16Vol103No9.pdf .
P. M. Mukundan, S. Manayankath, C. Srinivasan, and M. Sethumadhavan, “Hash-One: A lightweight cryptographic hash function,” IET Inf. Secur., vol. 10, № 5, pp. 225-231, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-ifs.2015.0385 .
D. N. Gupta, and R. Kumar, “DeeR-Hash: A lightweight hash construction for Industry 4.0/IoT,” J. Sci. Ind. Res., vol. 82, № 1, pp. 142-150, 2023. https://doi.org/10.56042/jsir.v82i1.69938 .
I. B. Damgård, “A Design Principle for Hash Functions,” in Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO’ 89 Proceedings. New York, NY: Springer N. Y., n.d., pp. 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-34805-0_39 .
Tri Ade Nia, Rudyanto Ompungsunggu, Arrant Ardi Sianipar, J. Jesimanta, and Yoramo Waruwu, “Merkle-Damgård as the Foundation of Hash Cryptography: A Study of Advantages and Limitations,” J. Tek. Indones., vol. 3, № 1, pp. 24-29, May 2024. https://doi.org/10.58471/ju-ti.v3i01.652 .
S. M. Matyas, C. H. Meyer, and J. Oseas, “Generating Strong One-Way Functions with Cryptographic Algorithm,” IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, v. 27, no. 10A, pp. 5658-5659, Mar 1985.
B. Preneel, R. Govaerts, and J. Vandewalle, “Hash Functions Based on Block Ciphers: A Synthetic Approach,” in Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO’ 93. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berl. Heidelb., 1993, pp. 368-378., https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48329-2_31.
O. J. Permana, B. H. Susanti, and M. Christine, “Fixed-point attack on Davies–Meyer hash function scheme based on SIMON, SPECK, and SIMECK algorithms,” in Saf. Problems Civil Eng. Crit. Infrastructures (SPCECI2021), VII Int. Conference. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0119689 .
G. Bertoni, J. Daemen, M. Peeters, and G. van Assche, “Sponge functions,” in ECRYPT Workshop on Hash Functions, 2007. [Electronic resource]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242285874_Sponge_Functions .
J.-S. Coron, J. Patarin, and Y. Seurin, “The Random Oracle Model and the Ideal Cipher Model Are Equivalent,” in Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2008, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85174-5_1 .
NIST, “Submission Requirements and Evaluation Criteria for the Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process,” 2018. [Electronic resource]. Available: https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Projects/Lightweight-Cryptography/documents/final-lwc-submission-requirements-august2018.pdf .
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
