# A Secure IoT-Based Irrigation System for Precision Agriculture Using the Expeditious Cipher
###### Abstract
Characteristics of lightweight cryptography are highlighted in ISO/IEC 29192 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27. Lightweight properties are evaluated based on chip size and energy consumption and small code and/or RAM size in case of software implementation [21]. In [21], the authors discussed privacy in IoT in the context of developing solutions and frameworks that address profiling and tracking, localization, and tracking challenges and underlined state-of-the-art lightweight cryptographic framework for IoT. In [23], the authors proposed a set of lightweight security protocols for encryption, authentication, and key management for IoT. The authors compared their proposed protocols with IPsec in terms of security and computational efficiency. They succeeded in achieving a decreased level of resource consumption with an increased level of security. In [24], the authors implemented AES and PRESENT ciphers on a smartphone and provided a performance evaluation comparison between the two algorithms. AES is the symmetric block cipher defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the standard for bulk data encryption, \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Proposed Model** & **Security Techniques Used?** & **Communication Technology Deployed** & **Data Analytics (DA) Techniques Used?** & **Challenge** \\ \hline Intelligent & & & & \\ Sensor-based Smart & & & & \\ Irrigation System & & & & \\ (2023) [15] & & & & \\ \hline Our proposed & Yes, The & WiFi and & ThingsSpeak displays graphs of & The proposed model integrates \\ model Secure & Expeditious Cipher & LoRAWAN or GSM & Tollected soil parameters & lightweight cryptography to the \\ System (2023) & & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: _Cont._whereas PRESENT is a symmetric ultra-lightweight block cipher that was standardized by ISO/IEC. On the other hand, the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol has been widely deployed as an application layer messaging and information exchange protocol in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication [25]. This is due to its ability to function with resource-constrained devices that utilize low bandwidth and unreliable links. MQTT is considered a lightweight, energy-efficient, and bandwidth-efficient communication protocol. MQTT utilizes the publish/subscribe architecture model to provide transition flexibility and simplicity of implementation. MQTT's main components are the publishers (lightweight sensors), the subscribers (applications interested in sensor data), and the brokers (connect publishers and subscribers and classify sensor data into topics) as illustrated in Figure 1. The data generated by a publisher are dispatched to multiple subscribers through an MQTT broker. MQTT was proposed in 1999 by [PERSON] of IBM and [PERSON] of Arcom and is currently an OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) standard; it also has a standard defined in ISO/IEC 20922:2016. Motivated by the increasing importance of smart irrigation systems in conserving water as a scarce natural resource, the role of precision agriculture in agriculture development, and the urgent need to apply information security techniques in the IoT part of the smart agriculture ecosystem, our aim in this research is to integrate a lightweight cryptography layer into the IoT ecosystem for smart agriculture and to investigate the deployment of a lightweight encryption protocol (the Expeditious Cipher) to create a secure channel between the sensing layer and the broker of MQTT protocol as well as between the broker and its subscribers in smart irrigation systems. This secure channel protects the sensors' published sensitive data from eavesdropping and theft and preserves the integrity of data, in addition to protection of the decision that is made by the DA entity and returned to actuators. It should be noted that the security in IoT-based systems lies in IoT local systems consisting of devices constrained in energy and computing power.