Date: 31/01/2012

Lightweight cryptography technique CLEFIA from Sony gets ISO/IEC stamp

Crypto technique CLEFIA developed by Sony Corporation is approved by ISO/IEC and is adopted as one of the ISO/IEC 29192 International Standards in lightweight cryptography.

Sony says 'CLEFIA' met the requirements of ISO/IEC 29192, as prescribed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 - the organization responsible for determining the International Standards for information security.

The features of CLEFIA includes:

'CLEFIA' has the same interface as the US government's Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). This block cipher has a block length of 128 bits, while key length can be selected from 128 bits, 192 bits or 256 bits.
'CLEFIA' uses latest block cipher design theory and it adopts the general Feistel structure, which is suited for implementation in constrained environments.

'Diffusion Switching Mechanism' (DSM) is employed to reduce processing operations whilst ensuring security. Components for data processing and key scheduling part are shared.

These improvements have made it possible to achieve efficient implementations in hardware and software, which had been difficult with conventional encryption technologies, explains Sony.

CLEFIA is suggested for lightweight cryptographic applications as indicated in ISO/IEC 29192 in smartcards, RFID tags, sensor networks, medical devices and more, in addition to conventional applications.