Some Implementation Issues for Security Services based on IBE

Identity Based Encryption (IBE) is a public key cryptosystem where a unique identity string, such as an e-mail address, can be used as a public key. IBE is simpler than the traditional PKI since certificates are not needed. An IBE scheme is usually based on pairing of discrete points on elliptic curves. An IBE scheme can also be based on quadratic residuosity. This paper presents an overview of these IBE schemes and surveys present IBE based security services. Private key management is described in detail with protocols to authenticate users of Private Key Generation Authorities (PKG), to protect submission of generated private keys, and to avoid the key escrow problem. In the security service survey IBE implementations for smartcards, for smart phones, for security services in mobile networking, for security services in health care information systems, for secure web services, and for grid network security are presented. Also the performance of IBE schemes is estimated

Identity, location and query privacy for smart devices

In this thesis, we have discussed three important aspects of users\u27 privacy namely, location privacy, identity privacy and query privacy. The information related to identity, location and query is very sensitive as it can reveal behavior patterns, interests, preferences and habits of the users. We have proposed several techniques in the thesis on how to better protect the identity, location and query privacy

Secure pairing-free two-party certificateless authenticated key agreement protocol with minimal computational complexity

Key agreement protocols play a vital role in maintaining security in many critical applications due to the importance of the secret key. Bilinear pairing was commonly used in designing secure protocols for the last several years; however, high computational complexity of this operation has been the main obstacle towards its practicality. Therefore, implementation of Elliptic-curve based operations, instead of bilinear pairings, has become popular recently, and pairing-free key agreement protocols have been explored in many studies. A considerable amount of literatures has been published on pairing-free key agreement protocols in the context of Public Key Cryptography (PKC). Simpler key management and non-existence of key escrow problem make certificateless PKC more appealing in practice. However, achieving certificateless pairing-free two-party authenticated key agreement protocols (CL-AKA) that provide high level of security with low computational complexity, remains a challenge in the research area. This research presents a secure and lightweight pairingfree CL-AKA protocol named CL2AKA (CertificateLess 2-party Authenticated Key Agreement). The properties of CL2AKA protocol is that, it is computationally lightweight while communication overhead remains the same as existing protocols of related works. The results indicate that CL2AKA protocol is 21% computationally less complex than the most efficient pairing-free CL-AKA protocol (KKC-13) and 53% less in comparison with the pairing-free CL-AKA protocol with highest level of security guarantee (SWZ-13). Security of CL2AKA protocol is evaluated based on provable security evaluation method under the strong eCK model. It is also proven that the CL2AKA supports all of the security requirements which are necessary for authenticated key agreement protocols. Besides the CL2AKA as the main finding of this research work, there are six pairing-free CL-AKA protocols presented as CL2AKA basic version protocols, which were the outcomes of several attempts in designing the CL2AKA

Authentication and Key Exchange in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Over the past decade or so, there has been rapid growth in wireless and mobile applications technologies. More recently, an increasing emphasis has been on the potential of infrastructureless wireless mobile networks that are easy, fast and inexpensive to set up, with the view that such technologies will enable numerous new applications in a wide range of areas. Such networks are commonly referred to as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Exchanging sensitive information over unprotected wireless links with unidentified and untrusted endpoints demand the deployment of security in MANETs. However, lack of infrastructure, mobility and resource constraints of devices, wireless communication links and other unique features of MANETs induce new challenges that make implementing security a very difficult task and require the design of specialized solutions. This thesis is concerned with the design and analysis of security solutions for MANETs. We identify the initial exchange of authentication and key credentials, referred to as pre-authentication, as well as authentication and key exchange as primary security goals. In particular, the problem of pre-authentication has been widely neglected in existing security solutions, even though it is a necessary prerequisite for other security goals. We are the first to classify and analyze different methods of achieving pairwise pre-authentication in MANETs. Out of this investigation, we identify identity-based cryptographic (IBC) schemes as well-suited to secure MANET applications that have no sufficient security solutions at this time. We use pairing-based IBC schemes to design an authentication and key exchange framework that meets the special requirements of MANETs. Our solutions are comprised of algorithms that allow for efficient and secure system set up, pre-authentication, mutual authentication, key establishment, key renewal, key revocation and key escrow prevention. In particular, we present the first fully self-organized key revocation scheme for MANETs that does not require any trusted third party in the network. Our revocation scheme can be used to amend existing IBC solutions, be seamlessly integrated in our security framework and even be adopted to conventional public key solutions for MANETs. Our scheme is based on propagated accusations and once the number of received accusations against a node reaches a defined threshold, the keys of the accused nodes are revoked. All communications are cryptographically protected, but unlike other proposed schemes, do not require computationally demanding digital signatures. Our scheme is the first that efficiently and securely enables nodes to revoke their own keys. Additionally, newly joining nodes can obtain previous accusations without performing computationally demanding operations such as verifying digital signatures. Several security and performance parameters make our scheme adjustable to the hostility of the MANET environment and the degree of resource constraints of network and devices. In our security analysis we show how security parameters can be selected to prevent attacks by colluding nodes and roaming adversaries. In our proposed security framework, we utilize special properties of pairing-based keys to design an efficient and secure method for pairwise pre-authentication and a set of ID-based authenticated key exchange protocols. In addition, we present a format for ID-based public keys that, unlike other proposed formats, allows key renewal before the start of a new expiry interval. Finally, we are the first to discuss the inherent key escrow property of IBC schemes in the context of MANETs. Our analysis shows that some special features of MANETs significantly limit the escrow capabilities of key generation centers (KGCs). We propose a novel concept of spy nodes that can be utilized by KGCs to increase their escrow capabilities and analyze the probabilities of successful escrow attacks with and without spy nodes. In summary, we present a complete authentication and key exchange framework that is tailored for MANET applications that have previously lacked such security solutions. Our solutions can be implemented using any pairing-based IBC scheme. The component design allows for the implementation of single schemes to amend existing solutions that do not provide certain functionalities. The introduction of several security and performance parameters make our solutions adjustable to different levels of resource constraints and security needs. In addition, we present extensions that make our solutions suitable for applications with sporadic infrastructure access as envisioned in the near future

Certificateless Algorithm for Body Sensor Network and Remote Medical Server Units Authentication over Public Wireless Channels

Wireless sensor networks process and exchange mission-critical data relating to patients’ health status. Obviously, any leakages of the sensed data can have serious consequences which can endanger the lives of patients. As such, there is need for strong security and privacy protection of the data in storage as well as the data in transit. Over the recent past, researchers have developed numerous security protocols based on digital signatures, advanced encryption standard, digital certificates and elliptic curve cryptography among other approaches. However, previous studies have shown the existence of many security and privacy gaps that can be exploited by attackers to cause some harm in these networks. In addition, some techniques such as digital certificates have high storage and computation complexities occasioned by certificate and public key management issues. In this paper, a certificateless algorithm is developed for authenticating the body sensors and remote medical server units. Security analysis has shown that it offers data privacy, secure session key agreement, untraceability and anonymity. It can also withstand typical wireless sensor networks attacks such as impersonation, packet replay and man-in-the-middle. On the other hand, it is demonstrated to have the least execution time and bandwidth requirements

Overview of Key Agreement Protocols

The emphasis of this paper is to focus on key agreement. To this aim, we address a self-contained, up-to-date presentation of key agreement protocols at high level. We have attempted to provide a brief but fairly complete survey of all these schemes