Comparative Analysis and Performance Evaluation of Cryptographic Algorithms

Encryption, which is based on the science of cryptography, is required to protect data and information in computer networks. As computing overhead rises, available encryption techniques are put to the test. It is necessary to assess the encryption algorithms’ performance in order to establish their applicability for various security scenarios and applications. The findings of available research on comparison studies and performance evaluation of encryption algorithms are inconsistent, therefore the authors could not draw any conclusions about the encryption algorithms’ performance based on different metrics. Three of the most widely debated encryption algorithms, Rivest, Shamir, Adelman (RSA), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and Data Encryption Standard (DES) were implemented and simulated in the Java programming environment in this study. Some selected text data files were used to drive the simulation. Metrics such as encryption time, decryption time, memory utilization and data size were used to measure the performances of the selected algorithms. When the three selected algorithms were run on 50 bytes data size, AES had encryption time of 40ms, decryption time 37ms, and memory utilization of 12MB. DES had encryption time 38ms, decryption time of 35ms and memory utilization of 08MB. RSA had encryption time 36ms, decryption time of 34ms and memory utilization of 10MB. When the three selected algorithms were run on 500 bytes data size, AES had encryption time of 65ms, decryption time 61ms, and memory utilization of 25MB. DES had an encryption time of 60ms, decryption time of 58ms and memory utilization of 17MB. RSA had an encryption time of 69ms, decryption time of 65ms and memory utilization of 21MB. In conclusion, DES performed better than other algorithms in both small and large data sizes for all metrics considered.