Lightweight Data Aggregation Scheme Against Internal Attackers in Smart Grid Using Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Recent advances of Internet and microelectronics technologies have led to the concept of smart grid which has been a widespread concern for industry, governments, and academia. The openness of communications in the smart grid environment makes the system vulnerable to different types of attacks. The implementation of secure communication and the protection of consumers’ privacy have become challenging issues. The data aggregation scheme is an important technique for preserving consumers’ privacy because it can stop the leakage of a specific consumer’s data. To satisfy the security requirements of practical applications, a lot of data aggregation schemes were presented over the last several years. However, most of them suffer from security weaknesses or have poor performances. To reduce computation cost and achieve better security, we construct a lightweight data aggregation scheme against internal attackers in the smart grid environment using Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). Security analysis of our proposed approach shows that it is provably secure and can provide confidentiality, authentication, and integrity. Performance analysis of the proposed scheme demonstrates that both computation and communication costs of the proposed scheme are much lower than the three previous schemes. As a result of these aforementioned benefits, the proposed lightweight data aggregation scheme is more practical for deployment in the smart grid environment

Code-based Identification and Signature Schemes

In an age of explosive growth of digital communications and electronic data storage, cryptography plays an integral role in our society. Some examples of daily use of cryptography are software updates, e-banking, electronic commerce, ATM cards, etc. The security of most currently used cryptosystems relies on the hardness of the factorization and discrete logarithm problems. However, in 1994 Peter Shor discovered polynomial-time algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms on a quantum computer. Therefore, it is of extreme importance to develop cryptosystems that remain secure even when the adversary has access to a quantum computer; such systems are called post-quantum cryptosystems. One promising candidate is based on codes; in this thesis we focus more specifically on code-based identification and signature schemes. Public key identification schemes are typically applied in cryptography to reach the goal of entity authentication. Their applications include authentication and access control services such as remote login, credit card purchases and many others. One of the most well-known systems of this kind is the zero-knowledge identification scheme introduced in Crypto 1993 by Stern. It is very fast compared to schemes based on number-theoretic problems since it involves only simple and efficiently executable operations. However, its main drawbacks are the high communication complexity and the large public key size, that makes it impractical for many applications. Our first contribution addresses these drawbacks by taking a step towards reducing communication complexity and public key size simultaneously. To this end, we propose a novel zero-knowledge five-pass identification scheme which improves on Stern's scheme. It reduces the communication complexity by a factor of 25 % compared to Stern's one. Moreover, we obtain a public key of size of 4 KB, whereas Stern's scheme requires 15 KB for the same level of security. To the best of our knowledge, there is no code-based identification scheme with better performance than our proposal using random codes. Our second contribution consists of extending one of the most important paradigms in cryptography, namely the one by Fiat and Shamir. In doing so, we enlarge the class of identification schemes to which the Fiat-Shamir transform can be applied. Additionally, we put forward a generic methodology for proving the security of signature schemes derived from this class of identification schemes. We exemplify our extended paradigm and derive a provably secure signature scheme based on our proposed five-pass identification scheme. In order to contribute to the development of post-quantum schemes with additional features, we present an improved code-based threshold ring signature scheme using our two previous results. Our proposal has a shorter signature length and a smaller public-key size compared to Aguilar et al.'s scheme, which is the reference in this area

A Survey on Exotic Signatures for Post-Quantum Blockchain: Challenges & Research Directions

Blockchain technology provides efficient and secure solutions to various online activities by utilizing a wide range of cryptographic tools. In this paper, we survey the existing literature on post-quantum secure digital signatures that possess exotic advanced features and which are crucial cryptographic tools used in the blockchain ecosystem for (i) account management, (ii) consensus efficiency, (iii) empowering scriptless blockchain, and (iv) privacy. The exotic signatures that we particularly focus on in this work are the following: multi-/aggregate, threshold, adaptor, blind and ring signatures. Herein the term exotic refers to signatures with properties which are not just beyond the norm for signatures e.g. unforgeability, but also imbue new forms of functionalities. Our treatment of such exotic signatures includes discussions on existing challenges and future research directions in the post-quantum space. We hope that this article will help to foster further research to make post-quantum cryptography more accessible so that blockchain systems can be made ready in advance of the approaching quantum threats

Vulnerability of blockchain technologies to quantum attacks

Quantum computation represents a threat to many cryptographic protocols in operation today. It has been esti- mated that by 2035, there will exist a quantum computer capable of breaking the vital cryptographic scheme RSA2048. Blockchain technologies rely on cryptographic protocols for many of their essential sub-routines. Some of these protocols, but not all, are open to quantum attacks. Here we analyze the major blockchain-based cryp- tocurrencies deployed today—including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and ZCash, and determine their risk exposure to quantum attacks. We finish with a comparative analysis of the studied cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technologies and their relative levels of vulnerability to quantum attacks

Selected Computing Research Papers Volume 1 June 2012

An Evaluation of Anti-phishing Solutions (Arinze Bona Umeaku) ..................................... 1 A Detailed Analysis of Current Biometric Research Aimed at Improving Online Authentication Systems (Daniel Brown) .............................................................................. 7 An Evaluation of Current Intrusion Detection Systems Research (Gavin Alexander Burns) .................................................................................................... 13 An Analysis of Current Research on Quantum Key Distribution (Mark Lorraine) ............ 19 A Critical Review of Current Distributed Denial of Service Prevention Methodologies (Paul Mains) ............................................................................................... 29 An Evaluation of Current Computing Methodologies Aimed at Improving the Prevention of SQL Injection Attacks in Web Based Applications (Niall Marsh) .............. 39 An Evaluation of Proposals to Detect Cheating in Multiplayer Online Games (Bradley Peacock) ............................................................................................................... 45 An Empirical Study of Security Techniques Used In Online Banking (Rajinder D G Singh) .......................................................................................................... 51 A Critical Study on Proposed Firewall Implementation Methods in Modern Networks (Loghin Tivig) .................................................................................................... 5