The Internet of Things, the idea that all devices will eventually connect to one another and the web has grown in popularity over the past decade. Industries as diverse as healthcare, cyber-physical systems, smart-grid, and smart cities apply IoT with or without human intervention.

IoT devices at present are available in various forms. The smallest among these are Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, sensor nodes, and smart cards. However, these limit the hardware and software resources that are available to undertake security measures. Therefore, these devices are called resource-constrained devices.

The shift from conventional computers to such small devices brings a wide range of security challenges. The modern cryptographic algorithms that were optimized for the computer/server environment cannot be implemented in such devices without compromising performance.