Hybrid Encryption System with Initialization Vector for Secure Data Transmission

Abstract

A critical challenge facing various industries is how to ensure the security of sensitive data. To transmit sensitive data over insecure channels, secure key management of encryption keys and generating a well-secured ciphertext have become paramount. To address this challenge, this paper provides a Hybrid Encryption System that leverages the strengths of asymmetric and symmetric encryption in terms of key management, encryption speed, and overall usability. The initialization vector ensures the uniqueness of the ciphertext produced. During encryption, a recipient generates two RSA keys (public and private) and then proceeds to share the public key with the sender. A pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) is used to create the initialization vector (IV) that is used alongside the AES key to encrypt the data file. The AES key is then encrypted using the recipients’ public key and all these are done during one execution stage. At decryption, the recipient will receive three files namely; an encrypted data file, an encrypted AES key, and IV. The AES key is decrypted using the recipients’ private key before decrypting the data file and all these are also done at one execution stage. The Hybrid Encryption System was evaluated against the AES and RSA algorithms. According to the results obtained, the total execution time indicated that the proposed hybrid system was considerably faster than RSA while AES was faster than the proposed hybrid system. The hybrid system also provides the maximum level of data security due to the uniqueness of the ciphertext it produces.