Cellular automata is the developing field for encryption properties since it shares many attributes with those of the security systems employed in network systems. In wireless systems, there are many cases of theft of information over the network, and therefore, encryption and cryptographic techniques must be employed. In this paper, dynamic symmetric key encryption is used to apply cellular automata rules to blocks of 16-bit data. Using the knowledge on groups and congruence relations, the data is encrypted and then decrypted on the receiving end using a common key. For security purposes, a more advanced programmed cellular automata (PCA) implementation has been selected to dynamically generate the rules of the cellular automata. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.