Computer system security is crucial in preserving the confidentiality, integrity, and data security of electronic resources in the workplace. As a result, corporations implement security measures that employ powerful encryption and decryption techniques to safeguard sensitive company data that resides and is communicated over the Internet. Many cryptographic algorithms are available to securely transmit data, but the algorithm used should be robust, efficient, cost-effective, high-performance, and easily deployable. Choosing an algorithm that suits the customer’s requirements is the utmost important task. A range of factors, such as operating systems, compilers, and environmental conditions, influence how well cryptographic algorithms function. The research examined the throughput of AES (Rijndael) cryptographic algorithms on Windows and Linux operating systems with various key bit and block sizes. For the experiment, two virtual machines running Windows and Linux with comparable characteristics were employed. These virtual machines operate on an HP laptop equipped with a 3.38GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The throughput times of the AES cryptographic method were examined on both Windows and Linux operating systems. The study was conducted on a standalone system, where the algorithms are executed on an intel-core processor running Windows 10 Pro-64-bits and Fedora 34. Python programming language was used for the analysis and coding. The outcome of the experiment indicated that Linux performs marginally better than Windows when executing Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) procedures.

Authors: Kwame Assa-Agyei, Funminiyi Olajide

Published in: International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST-2022)

• Date of Conference: 6-8 December 2022
• DOI: 10.20533/ICITST.2022.0007
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-55-6
• Conference Location: Virtual (London, UK)