Efficient Anonymous Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are widely used in telemedicine, which can be utilized for real-time patients monitoring and home health-care. The sensor nodes in WBANs collect the client’s physiological data and transmit it to the medical center. However, the clients’ personal information is sensitive and there are many security threats in the extra-body communication. Therefore, the security and privacy of client’s physiological data need to be ensured. Many authentication protocols for WBANs have been proposed in recent years. However, the existing protocols fail to consider the key update phase. In this paper, we propose an efficient authenticated key agreement scheme for WBANs and add the key update phase to enhance the security of the proposed scheme. In addition, session keys are generated during the registration phase and kept secretly, thus reducing computation cost in the authentication phase. The performance analysis demonstrates that our scheme is more efficient than the currently popular related schemes

Key management for beyond 5G mobile small cells: a survey

The highly anticipated 5G network is projected to be introduced in 2020. 5G stakeholders are unanimous that densification of mobile networks is the way forward. The densification will be realized by means of small cell technology, and it is capable of providing coverage with a high data capacity. The EU-funded H2020-MSCA project “SECRET” introduced covering the urban landscape with mobile small cells, since these take advantages of the dynamic network topology and optimizes network services in a cost-effective fashion. By taking advantage of the device-to-device communications technology, large amounts of data can be transmitted over multiple hops and, therefore, offload the general network. However, this introduction of mobile small cells presents various security and privacy challenges. Cryptographic security solutions are capable of solving these as long as they are supported by a key management scheme. It is assumed that the network infrastructure and mobile devices from network users are unable to act as a centralized trust anchor since these are vulnerable targets to malicious attacks. Security must, therefore, be guaranteed by means of a key management scheme that decentralizes trust. Therefore, this paper surveys the state-of-the-art key management schemes proposed for similar network architectures (e.g., mobile ad hoc networks and ad hoc device-to-device networks) that decentralize trust. Furthermore, these key management schemes are evaluated for adaptability in a network of mobile small cells

A survey on wireless body area networks: architecture, security challenges and research opportunities.

In the era of communication technologies, wireless healthcare networks enable innovative applications to enhance the quality of patients’ lives, provide useful monitoring tools for caregivers, and allows timely intervention. However, due to the sensitive information within the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), insecure data violates the patients’ privacy and may consequently lead to improper medical diagnosis and/or treatment. Achieving a high level of security and privacy in WBAN involves various challenges due to its resource limitations and critical applications. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of the WBAN technology is provided, with a particular focus on the security and privacy concerns along with their countermeasures, followed by proposed research directions and open issues

Lightweight identity based online/offline signature scheme for wireless sensor networks

Data security is one of the issues during data exchange between two sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSN). While information flows across naturally exposed communication channels, cybercriminals may access sensitive information. Multiple traditional reliable encryption methods like RSA encryption-decryption and Diffie–Hellman key exchange face a crisis of computational resources due to limited storage, low computational ability, and insufficient power in lightweight WSNs. The complexity of these security mechanisms reduces the network lifespan, and an online/offline strategy is one way to overcome this problem. This study proposed an improved identity-based online/offline signature scheme using Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) encryption. The lightweight calculations were conducted during the online phase, and in the offline phase, the encryption, point multiplication, and other heavy measures were pre-processed using powerful devices. The proposed scheme uniquely combined the Inverse Collusion Attack Algorithm (CAA) with lightweight ECC to generate secure identitybased signatures. The suggested scheme was analyzed for security and success probability under Random Oracle Model (ROM). The analysis concluded that the generated signatures were immune to even the worst Chosen Message Attack. The most important, resource-effective, and extensively used on-demand function was the verification of the signatures. The low-cost verification algorithm of the scheme saved a significant number of valued resources and increased the overall network’s lifespan. The results for encryption/decryption time, computation difficulty, and key generation time for various data sizes showed the proposed solution was ideal for lightweight devices as it accelerated data transmission speed and consumed the least resources. The hybrid method obtained an average of 66.77% less time consumption and up to 12% lower computational cost than previous schemes like the dynamic IDB-ECC two-factor authentication key exchange protocol, lightweight IBE scheme (IDB-Lite), and Korean certification-based signature standard using the ECC. The proposed scheme had a smaller key size and signature size of 160 bits. Overall, the energy consumption was also reduced to 0.53 mJ for 1312 bits of offline storage. The hybrid framework of identity-based signatures, online/offline phases, ECC, CAA, and low-cost algorithms enhances overall performance by having less complexity, time, and memory consumption. Thus, the proposed hybrid scheme is ideally suited for a lightweight WSN

Blockchain Application on the Internet of Vehicles (IoV)

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its potential integration with the traditional Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs), we have witnessed the emergence of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), which promises to seamlessly integrate into smart transportation systems. However, the key characteristics of IoV, such as high-speed mobility and frequent disconnections make it difficult to manage its security and privacy. The Blockchain, as a distributed tamper-resistant ledge, has been proposed as an innovative solution that guarantees privacy-preserving yet secure schemes. In this paper, we review recent literature on the application of blockchain to IoV, in particular, and intelligent transportation systems in general

Multifactor Authentication Key Management System based Security Model Using Effective Handover Tunnel with IPV6

In the current modern world, the way of life style is being completely changed due to the emerging technologies which are reflected in treating the patients too. As there is a tremendous growth in population, the existing e-Healthcare methods are not efficient enough to deal with numerous medical data. There is a delay in caring of patient health as communication networks are poor in quality and moreover smart medical resources are lacking and hence severe causes are experienced in the health of patient. However, authentication is considered as a major challenge ensuring that the illegal participants are not permitted to access the medical data present in cloud. To provide security, the authentication factors required are smart card, password and biometrics. Several approaches based on these are authentication factors are presented for e-Health clouds so far. But mostly serious security defects are experienced with these protocols and even the computation and communication overheads are high. Thus, keeping in mind all these challenges, a novel Multifactor Key management-based authentication by Tunnel IPv6 (MKMA- TIPv6) protocol is introduced for e-Health cloud which prevents main attacks like user anonymity, guessing offline password, impersonation, and stealing smart cards. From the analysis, it is proved that this protocol is effective than the existing ones such as Pair Hand (PH), Linear Combination Authentication Protocol (LCAP), Robust Elliptic Curve Cryptography-based Three factor Authentication (RECCTA) in terms storage cost, Encryption time, Decryption time, computation cost, energy consumption and speed. Hence, the proposed MKMA- TIPv6 achieves 35bits of storage cost, 60sec of encryption time, 50sec decryption time, 45sec computational cost, 50% of energy consumption and 80% speed

Research on security and privacy in vehicular ad hoc networks

Los sistemas de redes ad hoc vehiculares (VANET) tienen como objetivo proporcionar una plataforma para diversas aplicaciones que pueden mejorar la seguridad vial, la eficiencia del tráfico, la asistencia a la conducción, la regulación del transporte, etc. o que pueden proveer de una mejor información y entretenimiento a los usuarios de los vehículos. Actualmente se está llevando a cabo un gran esfuerzo industrial y de investigación para desarrollar un mercado que se estima alcance en un futuro varios miles de millones de euros. Mientras que los enormes beneficios que se esperan de las comunicaciones vehiculares y el gran número de vehículos son los puntos fuertes de las VANET, su principal debilidad es la vulnerabilidad a los ataques contra la seguridad y la privacidad.En esta tesis proponemos cuatro protocolos para conseguir comunicaciones seguras entre vehículos. En nuestra primera propuesta empleamos a todas las unidades en carretera (RSU) para mantener y gestionar un grupo en tiempo real dentro de su rango de comunicación. Los vehículos que entren al grupo de forma anónima pueden emitir mensajes vehículo a vehículo (V2V) que inmediatamente pueden ser verificados por los vehículos del mismo grupo (y grupos de vecinos). Sin embargo, en la primera fase del despliegue de este sistema las RSU pueden no estar bien distribuídas. Consecuentemente, se propone un conjunto de mecanismos para hacer frente a la seguridad, privacidad y los requisitos de gestión de una VANET a gran escala sin la suposición de que las RSU estén densamente distribuidas. La tercera propuesta se centra principalmente en la compresión de las evidencias criptográficas que nos permitirán demostrar, por ejemplo, quien era el culpable en caso de accidente. Por último, investigamos los requisitos de seguridad de los sistemas basados en localización (LBS) sobre VANETs y proponemos un nuevo esquema para la preservación de la privacidad de la localización en estos sistemas sobre dichas redes.Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) systems aim at providing a platform for various applications that can improve traffic safety and efficiency, driver assistance, transportation regulation, infotainment, etc. There is substantial research and industrial effort to develop this market. It is estimated that the market for vehicular communications will reach several billion euros. While the tremendous benefits expected from vehicular communications and the huge number of vehicles are strong points of VANETs, their weakness is vulnerability to attacks against security and privacy.In this thesis, we propose four protocols for secure vehicle communications. In our first proposal, we employ each road-side unit (RSU) to maintain and manage an on-the-fly group within its communication range. Vehicles entering the group can anonymously broadcast vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) messages, which can be instantly verified by the vehicles in the same group (and neighbor groups). However, at the early stage of VANET deployment, the RSUs may not be well distributed. We then propose a set of mechanisms to address the security, privacy, and management requirements of a large-scale VANET without the assumption of densely distributed RSUs. The third proposal is mainly focused on compressing cryptographic witnesses in VANETs. Finally, we investigate the security requirements of LBS in VANETs and propose a new privacy-preserving LBS scheme for those networks

An anonymous authentication and key establish scheme for smart grid: FAuth

The smart meters in electricity grids enable fine-grained consumption monitoring. Thus, suppliers could adjust their tariffs. However, as smart meters are deployed within the smart grid field, authentication and key establishment between smart grid parties (smart meters, aggregators, and servers) become an urgency. Besides, as privacy is becoming a big concern for smart meters, smart grid parties are reluctant to leak their real identities during the authentication phase. In this paper, we analyze the recent authentication schemes in smart grids and other applied fields, and propose an anonymous authentication and key establishment scheme between smart grid parties: FAuth. The proposed scheme is based on bilinear maps and the computational Diffie–Hellman problem. We changed the way the smart meter parties registered at Key Generation Center, making the proposed scheme robust against various potential attacks that could be launched by the Key Generation Center, as the scheme could avoid the private key of the smart meter parties from leaking to the Key Generation Center. Besides, the proposed scheme reduced the computational load, both at the smart meter side and at the aggregator side, which make it perfectly suitable for computation-constrained devices. Security proof results show the proposed scheme is secure under the BAN logic and random oracle model