Modeling energy-efficient secure communications in multi-mode wireless mobile devices

•Mobile terminals support multiple and heterogeneous communication technologies.•We study energy-related dynamics of secure communications among mobile terminals.•We formulate an energy model which considers communication and security activities.•The model is useful to minimize the overall energy consumption of involved terminals.•The model has been validated through simulation.

Despite the wide deployment of advanced wireless coverage infrastructures, finding the best way for achieving secure mobile communication in every-day's life activities is still an open question. Indeed, a large number of mobile terminals, supporting multiple networking technologies, may be used to manage data from everywhere and at anytime. However, the effort required for achieving security, given the complexity of cryptographic algorithms, heavily affects the power consumption of terminals. Such energy demand, together with the one required to manage communication activities, makes energy-efficient secure communication among hardware-constrained handheld devices a challenging topic.In this work, we introduce an analytic energy model for secure communication among multi-mode terminals. This model describes the energy consumption of mobile terminals operating within a dynamic network scenario, considering both their interconnection and secure data exchange issues, in order to develop adaptive strategies for energy-efficient secure communications. Finally, the model has been validated through simulation.