Computational Time Evaluation of AES and RSA for Text Message Security

Abstract

The rapid growth of information technology has increased the need for secure data processing and transmission, particularly for text messages. Cryptographic algorithms such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) are widely used to ensure data confidentiality, yet they exhibit different computational performance characteristics. This study aims to evaluate and compare the computational time of encryption and decryption processes using AES, RSA, and a hybrid AES–RSA method for text message security. The system was implemented through simulation, where AES-128 was used for data encryption and RSA for securing the symmetric key. Computational time was measured through 50 repeated experiments for each method with varying message lengths. The resulting data were analyzed using normality testing and the Kruskal–Wallis test to determine statistically significant differences in performance. The results indicate that AES achieves the highest efficiency in computational time, RSA requires the longest processing time, and the hybrid AES–RSA method demonstrates moderate performance between the two. These findings provide empirical insights for selecting appropriate cryptographic methods based on computational efficiency in text message processing systems.