Sunil Kumar Shah, Raghvendra Sharma, and Neeraj Shukla
Dynamic XTEA Optimization and Secure Key Management for Embedded Microcontroller-Based SDN Systems in Smart Cities
The rapid expansion of smart city infrastructures necessitates robust and efficient security mechanisms for embedded processor-based Software-Defined Networking (SDN) nodes. Hence, this research introduces the Adaptive Secure XTEA for Embedded Microcontrollers (ASX-EM), a novel encryption method designed to address these environments' unique security and performance needs. Existing encryption implementations often neglect proper padding validation, leading to vulnerabilities such as the Padding Oracle Attack (POA). The proposed Context-Aware Key Expansion and Secure Padding Validation (CAKE-SPV) technique customizes key scheduling based on node-specific parameters and employs a robust padding verification mechanism, significantly enhancing encryption security. Moreover, the computational demands of XTEA, with its multiple rounds of operations, are inefficient on resourceconstrained 8-bit microcontrollers, leading to increased latency and reduced system responsiveness. To optimize performance, the Adaptive Round and Parallel Processing (ARPP) method is developed that dynamically adjusts encryption rounds based on system metrics and employs bit-slice processing with precomputed lookup tables for efficient arithmetic operations. The results show that the proposed model has a low encryption time of 2.7s a decryption time of 2.6s, and a high encryption throughput of 22,000 KB/sec and, a decryption throughput of 17600 KB/sec, compared to other existing models.
Reference:
DOI: 10.36244/ICJ.2025.4.8
Please cite this paper the following way:
Sunil Kumar Shah, Raghvendra Sharma, and Neeraj Shukla "Dynamic XTEA Optimization and Secure Key Management for Embedded Microcontroller-Based SDN Systems in Smart Cities", Infocommunications Journal, Vol. XVII, No 4, December 2025, pp. 58-71., https://doi.org/10.36244/ICJ.2025.4.8