An Adaptive Elliptic Curve Cryptography Framework for Robust, Scalable and Secure IoT Blockchain Applications
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Abstract
Conventional blockchain systems in Internet of Things (IoT) applications encounter significant scalability, security, and efficiency problems that degrade their efficiency. Despite offering a secure, decentralized, and transparent framework, existing blockchain implementations in IoT systems face significant challenges, including rigid hash parameter configurations, potential security vulnerabilities, the computational complexity of algorithms such as RSA, and inherent limitations in scalability. The objective of this study is to design a cryptographic framework that (i) ensures quantum resistance, (ii) improves scalability for resource-constrained IoT devices, and (iii) reduces encryption overhead compared to RSA and SHA-256. We propose an Adaptive Elliptic Curve Cryptography (AECC) framework using a dual-layer Elliptic Curve mechanism, where the base point is adaptively derived from the underlying data, enhancing both security and scalability. Furthermore, a novel blockchain architecture is designed that leverages the mathematical properties of Elliptic Curves, effectively replacing traditional compression and encryption techniques. The framework primarily derives hash values from varying parameters whose base point G is unknown and then a Quantum safe cryptographic system employing Elliptic Curves instead of SHA 256 and RSA. Compared to currently available blockchain algorithms, the proposed AECC algorithm is relatively and statistically more efficient according to the results obtained from confusion and diffusion analysis, uniform distribution analysis, sensitivity analysis, and collision analysis. Our significant innovation is quantum-resistant security with randomized base points and dual-ECC layers that prevent precomputation attacks with near-ideal diffusion/confusion (0.0317) and collision resistance. The second innovation is computational efficiency whereby AECC minimizes key sizes by 12× compared to RSA (256-bit vs. 3072-bit) with comparable security, as well as 3× faster encryption speeds (1.5 ms per block). Another innovative addition includes IoT suitability that guarantees scalability with dynamic parameterization for resource-constrained devices with sensitivity analysis demonstrated (0.4995 bit-flip rate) and testing on real IoT datasets. Our empirical results establish AECC’s superiority over RSA and SHA-256 in terms of security, energy efficiency, and adaptability, and hence a robust solution for future IoT-blockchain applications.