Review of Lightweight Cryptography for Mobile Phone Security Against Modern Cyber Threats

Abstract

Mobile phones have become the primary computing platform for personal and financial data, yet they operate under strict constraints of battery life, memory, and processing power that limit the practicality of conventional cryptographic standards such as AES and RSA. This paper presents a review of the literature on lightweight cryptography (LWC) as a mechanism for securing mobile phones against modern cyber threats, including malware, network interception, and behavioural exploitation. Drawing on twenty-five peer-reviewed sources published between 2015 and 2024, the review examines the design principles of lightweight cryptographic algorithms, the evolving mobile malware landscape, the standardisation efforts led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the existing frameworks proposed for constrained-device security. The review finds that while lightweight cryptographic algorithms have matured considerably in terms of theoretical security and implementation efficiency, comparatively few studies evaluate these algorithms within complete, real-device mobile security frameworks that explicitly address contemporary malware threats. The paper concludes by identifying this integration gap and proposing directions for future research, including real-device benchmarking, threat-model-driven framework design, and the co-design of cryptographic and detection-based defences.