Performance Comparison of Hybrid Encryption Models

Encryption and decryption are two major words which can ensure the privacy of a person or an organisation. These two processes can impact not only the security of a system but also usage and performance. Currently, there are a lot of encryption algorithms which can be used based on the specific system requirement. Additionally, symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption are categories that these methods fall under. Combining both symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms results in hybrid models. Although symmetric methods provide faster encryption and decryption times, key exchange raises serious security issues. Asymmetric algorithms serve as a solution to address this issue; however, they often exhibit slower performance and require more computational resources. Hybrid encryption emerges as a solution by combining both types. The effectiveness of combining two encryption models cannot be guaranteed as a universal solution, as it also depends on the specific requirements of the system. When developing hybrid encryption models, several challenges need to be addressed, including key exchange, model performance, cipher randomness, and compatibility. This research study proposes and implements four hybrid models that leverage AES and Blowfish for performing input encryption and RSA and ECC for key exchange. The performance and randomness of these models are evaluated, and all of them successfully pass the NIST statistical tests. Notably, the ECC models demonstrate superior overall performance, with the exception of the time factor.