Designing a high performance cryptosystem for video streaming application

Abstract

This paper presents the hardware design of a high performance cryptosystem for video streaming application. Our proposed system is the combination of two cryptographic algorithms, symmetric key algorithm and asymmetric key algorithm (also called public key algorithm) to take their benefits. The symmetric key algorithm (ZUC) is used to encrypt/decrypt video, and the public key algorithm (RSA) performs the encryption/ decryption for the secret key. This architecture has high performance, including high security and high processing bit rate. High security is achieved due to the ease of key distribution of the asymmetric key cryptosystem and the secret key can be easily changed. The high processing bit rate of video encryption/decryption is the result of the high speed of encryption/decryption of the symmetric key algorithm. The H.264 video decoder is also integrated into this system to test the functionality of the proposed cryptosystem. This system is implemented in Verilog-HDL, simulated by using the ModelSim simulator and evaluated by using Altera Stratix IV-based Development Kit. The speed of video decryption achieves up to 4.0 Gbps at the operating frequency of 125 MHz, which satisfies applications with high bandwidth requirement such as video streaming.