DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT HYBRID ENCRYPTION SCHEME FOR SECURING SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS)

摘要

Majority of mobile device users will prefer to preserve the privacy of their SMS communication using mobile device SMS encryption solutions. The mobile devices in use however, are highly constrained in terms of memory, power and computing capability to utilize the current SMS encryption solutions. As a result of this, there is a room for improvement in terms of the speed efficiency of the SMS encryption schemes proposed for use on mobile devices. This research proposed an end-to-end SMS encryption scheme ideal for use on mobile devices using a hybrid combination of cryptographic algorithms: Blowfish symmetric encryption algorithm, Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). The proposed scheme was implemented using Java programming language to develop SMS encrypting Android application. The time taken for the proposed scheme cryptographic operations was measured on five different android mobile devices with varying processor speed. The operation measured was the time taken for encryption, decryption and key generation. The research results revealed that the proposed scheme has a faster rate of key generation, encryption and decryption. This research has provided an end-to-end hybrid SMS encryption scheme ideal for use on constrained mobile devices using a hybrid combination of cryptographic algorithms: Blowfish symmetric encryption algorithm, Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and is therefore an improvement in term of speed to the existing SMS encryption schemes on mobile devices.