Optimizing Secure Group Communication in IoT Networks for Smart City Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm envisions a pervasive “network of networks,” facilitating effortless communication and data exchange across diverse domains. Nonetheless, the rise of IoT brings forth considerable challenges, especially in the realm of Secure Group Communications (SGCs), requiring strong security measures such as cryptographic techniques and encryption protocols. Since it is essential to balance security and efficiency in IoT scenarios, this paper examines encryption systems and security challenges possibly affecting IoT networks, then presenting optimization techniques including data aggregation, delta coding, compression, and selective forwarding. Then, through OMNeT++ simulations, the effects of these strategies on relevant performance metrics (such as latency, energy consumption, and data size) are described. The obtained results indicate that incorporating these optimization techniques greatly improves communication efficiency, leading to 40% latency decrease, 25% energy consumption decrease, and $\mathbf{5 0 \%}$ data size reduction. Thus, these findings highlight the effectiveness of optimization techniques in enhancing SGCs within IoT ecosystems, opening to future research activities on adaptive security mechanisms and lightweight cryptographic approaches.