Computational Overhead of a Novel Scheme for Identity Confidentiality on IoT Devices in 5G Mobile Networks

Mobile networks are becoming a preferred choice for the Internet of Things (IoT), due to its flexibility, broad coverage, increasing bandwidth, low latency and low subscription cost. However, a long-standing security issue in any mobile network across the various generations is identity confidentiality. In a recent technical specification standardised by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 5G mobile network, a novel scheme called the Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) is adopted to tackle the issue of identity confidentiality. While this mechanism seems to provide a reasonable solution for modern resource affluent smart phones, it’s suitability for resource constrained IoT devices needs to be analysed. In this paper, we study the computational overhead of the ECIES on IoT devices.