Design and Performance Analysis of a SPECK-Based Lightweight Hash Function

In recent years, hash algorithms have been used frequently in many areas, such as digital signature, blockchain, and IoT applications. Standard cryptographic hash functions, including traditional algorithms such as SHA-1 and MD5, are generally computationally intensive. A principal approach to improving the security and efficiency of hash algorithms is the integration of lightweight algorithms, which are designed to minimize computational overhead, into their architectural framework. This article proposes a new hash algorithm based on lightweight encryption. A new design for the lightweight hash function is proposed to improve its efficiency and meet security requirements. In particular, efficiency reduces computational load, energy consumption, and processing time for resource-constrained environments such as IoT devices. Security requirements focus on ensuring properties such as collision resistance, pre-image resistance, and distribution of modified bit numbers to ensure reliable performance while preserving the robustness of the algorithm. The proposed design incorporates the SPECK lightweight encryption algorithm to improve the structure of the algorithm, ensuring robust mixing and security through confusion and diffusion, while improving processing speed. Performance and efficiency tests were conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm, and the results were compared with commonly used hash algorithms in the literature. The test results show that the new lightweight hash algorithm has successfully passed security tests, including collision resistance, pre-image resistance, sensitivity, and distribution of hash values, while outperforming other commonly used algorithms regarding execution time.