An efficient scalar multiplication algorithm for ECC in WSNs

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) facilitate real time monitoring in many commercial and military surveillance applications. These applications automatically call for a high level of security in such networks. Public key cryptographic (PKC) techniques such as Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) provide a flexible interface to ensure security, requiring no pre-distribution of keys. However, ECC is very compute-intensive, owing to the computationally complex elliptic curve point multiplication operation. This work presents a technique to speed up the elliptic curve point multiplication operation, achieving a cost reduction of about 48% over the double and add algorithm and about 40% over the width-w Non Adjacent Form (NAF) algorithm. Additionally, results of its software implementation are presented.