Aqeel Sehrish, Khan Adnan Shahid, Abbasi Irshad Ahmed, Algarni Fahad, Grzonka Daniel
Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia.
Department of Computer Science, University of South Asia, Lahore, Pakistan.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 17;15(1):13367. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-96292-0.
The rapid increase of internet of things (IoT) devices in our daily lives has highlighted the critical need for strong security measures to protect the integrity and confidentiality of IoT communications. This paper presents a novel solution to this growing problem using a secure and lightweight DNA-based encryption method, elliptic curve encryption (ECC), to secure IoT communications. The research explains how DNA-LWCS (DNA-based lightweight cryptography system) utilizes basic encryption methods to secure data transmission against system complexity while maintaining security effectiveness. The security key ensures enough protection for achieving the necessary level of confidentiality. Three fundamental keys are extracted from publicly accessible DNA sequences to start the procedure during its first phase. When employed together with ECC these keys generate a private key during the second stage of development. During the second stage the keys generate a private key based on ECC (elliptic curve cryptography) protocol. The encryption and decryption of IoT device messages requires this private key during the last operational phase. The combination of intuitive DNA sequences together with ECC generates better security and decreases the strain on systems. Practical evaluations demonstrate that the proposed encryption method offers better security and efficiency compared to existing methods while maintaining weightless operational performance. This makes it an ideal solution to secure IoT data exchange. The encryption method we investigated received detailed study which focused on both security and efficiency criteria during our research timeframe. The research demonstrates our security method outperforms other solutions by maintaining low resource requirements. Our proposed DNA-based encryption system shows potential as a suitable security measure for protecting IoT connections through its lightweight design capabilities.
物联网（IoT）设备在我们日常生活中的迅速增加凸显了采取强有力的安全措施来保护物联网通信的完整性和保密性的迫切需求。本文提出了一种新颖的解决方案来应对这一日益严重的问题，即使用一种安全且轻量级的基于DNA的加密方法——椭圆曲线加密（ECC）来保障物联网通信安全。该研究解释了基于DNA的轻量级密码系统（DNA-LWCS）如何利用基本加密方法在保持安全有效性的同时，针对系统复杂性来保障数据传输安全。安全密钥确保了足够的保护，以实现必要的保密级别。在其第一阶段，从公开可获取的DNA序列中提取三个基本密钥来启动该过程。在开发的第二阶段，当与ECC一起使用时，这些密钥会生成一个私钥。在最后一个操作阶段，物联网设备消息的加密和解密需要这个私钥。直观的DNA序列与ECC相结合可产生更好的安全性，并减轻系统负担。实际评估表明，与现有方法相比，所提出的加密方法在保持轻量级操作性能的同时，提供了更好的安全性和效率。这使其成为保障物联网数据交换的理想解决方案。在我们的研究期间，对我们所研究的加密方法进行了详细研究，该研究聚焦于安全性和效率标准。该研究表明，我们的安全方法通过保持低资源需求而优于其他解决方案。我们提出的基于DNA的加密系统通过其轻量级设计能力，显示出作为保护物联网连接的合适安全措施的潜力。
