IISc Team Develops Record-Breaking Data Encryption That’ll Make Credit Cards & Passwords Safer

A team from IISc Bengaluru has developed a record-breaking true random number generator (TRNG) that can help improve data encryption while also better security for sensitive digital data, reveals a new PTI report.

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To the unaware, encrypted info can be decoded only by authorised users who have access to a cryptographic key, and this key needs to be random to be not easily hackable.?

Such keys are often generated by computers via pseudo-random number generators that make use of a mathematical formula or pre-programmed tables to produce numbers that appear random but aren’t.

TRNGs on the other hand extract random numbers from random physical processes, which make it more secure overall.

IISc’s TRNG generates random numbers using the random motion of electrons. It consists of an artificial electron trap constructed by stacking atomically-thin layers of materials such as black phosphorus and graphene.

The current measured from the device increases when an electron is trapped and decreases upon its release. Since the electrons move in and out of the trap randomly, the measured current also fluctuates randomly. The timing of this change decides the generated random number.

This number generator also happens to have a record-high min-entropy -- a parameter that’s used to measure the performance of TRNGs where the value ranges from zero being completely predictable to one being completely random.?

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IISc’s implementation got a score of 0.98 -- a considerable improvement over the previously held record of 0.89.

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Kausik Majumdar, associate professor at ECE, who led the study, explains, “Ours is by far the highest reported min-entropy among TRNGs,” says Abraham. The team's electronic TRNG is also more compact than its clunkier counterparts which are based on optical phenomena. Since our device is purely electronic, millions of such devices can be created on a single chip.”

The team is working on the device to make it faster as well as developing a new fabrication process that would enable mass-production of such chips.

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