HXTS: An efficient tweakable block cipher solution for enhancing sector data security
Zhe Fu Yu, Dan Liu, Kai Nie, Zilong Zhao, Fang Chen, Shunmin Zhou, Bin Wang · Array · 2026
Aiming at the problems of low encryption efficiency and weak security of HCTR and XTS, this paper designs an efficient tweakable block cipher solution—HXTS to enhance the security of sector data. HXTS is designed on a new strcture of Hash-XTS-Hash, which reduces the computation amount of the hash function to improve the encryption efficiency through the fine-grained partitioning of sector data into UnitData, and enhances the security of ciphertexts by updating the tweak parameter of each UnitData with the plaintext, ciphertext or function. In this paper, we first prove the feasibility of HXTS through data encryption/decryption experiments. Then through diffusivity experiments, it proves that HXTS has excellent data protection capability. Finally, through performance comparison experiments, it is proved that HXTS outperforms XTS and HCTR when encrypting folders, and the encryption efficiency of HXTS is improved by 20% compared with XTS, and the growth rate of memory occupation is reduced by 51% compared with XTS. HXTS, as a new tweakable block cipher scheme design, can provide a reference for further optimization of sector encryption.