A Hybrid Cryptographic Framework for Secure IoT Communication Integrating AES ECDH and SHA 512

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) play a crucial role in enabling IoT applications by facilitating data collection, monitoring and communication. However, ensuring security remains a major challenge in WSN, as in all types of networks. The resource -constrained nature of sensor nodes and their deployment in open and often unattended environments, WSNs are highly vulnerable to security threats. Attackers may physically tamper with sensor nodes, eavesdrop on transmitted data, inject false information or modify legitimate communications, thereby threatening data confidentiality, integrity and availability. To protect from such harms, it is required to provide security to sensitive data and check integrity in order to verify if the data has been modified. To improve energy efficiency, data security, and network lifetime, we propose a hybrid cryptographic framework in this article that combines Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange (DHKE)-based key establishment with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-based data encryption. SHA-512 is used for integrity purposes along with clustering through the standard LEACH protocol. AES's key exchange problem has been resolved by the suggested algorithm. The framework minimizes energy usage by confining asymmetric cryptographic operations to the startup phase while ensuring confidentiality, integrity and forward secrecy