Dynamic adaptive session-based advanced encryption standard

Abstract

Dynamic adaptive session-based advanced encryption standard (DASE) is an adaptive modification of the advanced encryption standard (AES) that allows the number of rounds to be adjusted to the security needs and timing constraints of each session. Conventional AES deployments run a fixed number of rounds regardless of data sensitivity, imposing needless processing on low-risk information and reducing flexibility in how security is applied. DASE defines three configurations: DASE-6, DASE-8, and DASE-10, and replaces the computationally heavy MixColumns transformation with a lightweight bit-permutation layer that preserves strong diffusion. Cryptographic robustness was evaluated using the avalanche effect and the strict avalanche criterion (SAC) across diverse plaintext patterns, while performance was measured on heterogeneous file types and sizes. DASE reached an average SAC of up to 53%, matching or exceeding standard AES-10, while DASE-6 delivered average encryption and decryption speed-ups of 50.55% and 38.94% over AES-10. DASE-8 and DASE-10 remained 40.46% and 32.54% faster in encryption, respectively, with DASE-10 retaining a clear advantage despite using the same round count as AES. The results demonstrate a tunable spectrum of security-performance trade-offs suitable for resource-constrained, high-throughput, and real-time data-protection scenarios.