Information technologies and computer sciences

Review of the Approaches and Methods for Lightweight Data Hashing

Authors

V. A. Luzhetskyi
Vinnytsia National Technical University ROR
V. I. Seleznov
Vinnytsia National Technical University ROR
DOI https://doi.org/10.31649/1997-9266-2025-183-6-99-112

Keywords

lightweight cryptography hash function Merkle–Damgård construction sponge construction hashing scheme cryptographic characteristics technical characteristic

Abstract

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.

197 91

How to Cite

[1]
“Review of the Approaches and Methods for Lightweight Data Hashing”, Вісник ВПІ, no. 6, pp. 99–112, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.31649/1997-9266-2025-183-6-99-112.

Author Biographies

V. A. Luzhetskyi, Vinnytsia National Technical University

Dr. Sc. (Eng.), Professor, Head of the Chair of Information Security

V. I. Seleznov, Vinnytsia National Technical University

Post-Graduate Student of the Chair of Information Security

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