Cryptographic Techniques for IoT: A Survey of Symmetric, Asymmetric, and Post Quantum Algorithms

Bhupender Rawat; Mohan Vishal Gupta; Amit Kumar; Ashish Bishnoi; Manish Joshi

doi:10.70454/JRICST.2026.30202

Authors

Bhupender Rawat Professor, College of Smart Computing COER University, Roorkee, India. Author
Mohan Vishal Gupta Associate Professor, CCSIT, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, India. Author
Amit Kumar Assistant Professor, CCSIT, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, India. Author
Ashish Bishnoi Assistant Professor, CCSIT, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, India. Author
Manish Joshi Assistant Professor, CCSIT, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, India. Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70454/JRICST.2026.30202

Keywords:

Internet of Things, Lightweight Cryptography, Symmetric Encryption Algorithms, Asymmetric Cryptographic Techniques, Post-Quantum Cryptography

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the most widely utilized group key management approaches, which enabled and best-effort perspective within a trusted domain, for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The protection of such data is extremely challenging, as a majority of IoT devices have limited computation capabilities, small memory size, and constrained battery life. Traditional security techniques are usually excessively resource-intensive in such scenarios. This review quantitatively discusses three types of cryptographic primitives that can be executed on IoT devices, Symmetric Cryptography, Asymmetric Cryptography, and Post-Quantum Cryptography. Symmetric cryptographic algorithms are widely used in IoT, as they have the highest throughput among other cryptographic primitives and they are energy efficient, due to their applicability for fast and low-energy data protection on devices. Asymmetric Cryptography plays an important role in secure key exchange and device authentication, especially in large scale and distributed IoT networks. Strong security is needed, but at the same time, devices must be able to communicate even if they have never met. Post-Quantum Cryptography is a new research area that aims to protect systems against powerful quantum computers in the future that are potentially capable of breaking most of the existing algorithms. However, while post-quantum algorithms are more secure, they can also be more resource-intensive, posing a challenge for small IoT devices. This paper emphasizes the importance of selecting cryptographic schemes that can provide strong security in spite of the constrained capabilities of IoT devices.

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