Implications for use of different encryption algorithms on power consumption for mobile devices in the healthcare industry
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publisher
CSREA Press
Faculty
Faculty of Computing, Health and Science
School
School of Computer and Information Science / Centre for Security Research
RAS ID
5276
Abstract
The actual amount of energy used by various cryptographic algorithms has been quantified, with more complex algorithms using more energy than those which are less complex. While this result in itself is not surprising, the implications are of concern. Personal data assistants are being increasingly used in the medical industry due to their convenience and mobility. It is possible that a denial of service attack could be perpetrated by someone with malicious intent by sending data to a PDA which uses a computationally complex, and thus high energy consuming, algorithm. The load of decrypting the malicious data would place significant strain on the battery life of a device, causing it to be drained more rapidly than it otherwise would. If the device were being used for time critical applications, then this type of attack presents a serious problem for those in the healthcare industry.
Comments
Ng, D., & Woodward, A. (2007, June). Implications for use of different encryption algorithms on power consumption for mobile devices in the healthcare industry. In Conference on Security and Management (p. 496-500). Las Vegas, Nevada: CSREA. Available here