A Novel Block Cipher Construction Based on Latin Square Substitution and Modular Permutation

Robbi  Rahim; Ronal  Watrianthos; Zulidyana Dwi  Rusnalasari

doi:10.29207/resti.v10i5.7565

Authors

Robbi Rahim STIM Sukma Medan
Ronal Watrianthos Politeknik Negeri Padang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3475-7266
Zulidyana Dwi Rusnalasari Universitas Negeri Surabaya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29207/resti.v10i5.7565

Keywords:

block cipher, IoT security, lightweight cryptography, latin square substitution, modular per-mutation

Abstract

Lightweight encryption is necessary to protect data on devices with limited resources, such as Internet of Things (IoT) nodes, radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems, and embedded controllers. PRESENT, PRINCE, and SPECK are examples of lightweight ciphers that work well but use fixed substitution and static diffusion structures that make it difficult for keys to change and make them less resistant to advanced cryptanalysis. This study presents a new lightweight block cipher that combines dynamic substitution based on Latin squares with modular permutation diffusion to improve both confusion and diffusion features. Encryption uses a key-dependent Latin Square to create unique nonlinear substitution mappings for each round. It also uses modular arithmetic to drive the permutation for efficient diffusion with a low hardware cost. The experimental evaluation showed a large avalanche effect (51.6%), differential probability (2⁻³⁸), and linear approximation probability (2⁻³⁹). These numbers are better than those of current designs in terms of cryptanalytic resistance. Hardware synthesis on FPGA yields 1,650 gate equivalents, 14.9 Mbps throughput, and 0.63 nJ/bit energy efficiency, which shows that it is suitable for lightweight encryption. The results show that the proposed design strikes a good balance between security and efficiency, bridging the gap between the theoretical cryptographic strength and the actual low-power implementation.

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