Securing terminal data transmission remains a critical challenge in Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) ecosystems, where conventional lightweight block ciphers struggle to reconcile security robustness with stringent resource constraints. Thus, A new lightweight block cipher named NBLBC is proposed to mitigate terminal data leakage vulnerabilities in NB-IoT. The proposed NBLBC features a double-layer, 8-branch MARS-like structure. A key contribution lies in the development of a double-layer hybrid linear layer, which significantly enhances the diffusion performance compared to traditional ...
