RC4 state and its applications

In this paper, we define the RC4 state and introduce its forward and backward property. Based on the RC4 state and its forward and backward property, a simple, lightweight, but robust security protocol which achieves data confidentiality, data authentication, data integrity, and data freshness with low overhead and simple operations is presented. Furthermore, an RC4 state based hash function for the generation of message authentication code (MAC) is presented. The proposed protocol and hash function are ideal solution for resource-constrained applications where the communication nodes have limited power resources and computational capabilities, and can be widely used in the applications of one-to-one communications as well as broadcasting and multicasting.