A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Encryption Techniques Using ECC, RSA, AES, and ChaCha20 for Secure Data Transmission

Abstract

Over the past decade, hybrid encryption techniques have gained prominence for their ability to combine the strengths of different cryptographic algorithms. This study presents a performance evaluation of four hybrid schemes RSA with AES, RSA with ChaCha20, ECC with AES, and ECC with ChaCha20 implemented in Java and tested for secure data transmission across cloud services, e-applications, and IoT platforms. Performance is assessed based on key generation time, encryption/decryption speed, and memory usage across various file types. The results indicate that ECC-based combinations significantly outperform RSA based methods, both in computational speed and resource efficiency. Among these, the hybrid ECC with ChaCha20 algorithm demonstrates the fastest processing times and the lowest memory consumption, making it particularly suitable for mobile and embedded systems with limited resources. While ECC with AES offers comparable memory efficiency, its encryption speed is slightly lower. In contrast, RSA-based hybrids, though cryptographically secure, exhibit higher processing demands, rendering them less practical for high-performance or real-time applications. The study underscores the advantages of leveraging ECC with modern stream ciphers such as ChaCha20 to achieve a balance between security and system efficiency. These insights offer valuable guidance for engineers and researchers developing secure communication systems in resource-sensitive environments.