Provably secure and efficient PUF‐based broadcast authentication schemes for smart grid applications

Many smart grid applications need broadcast communications. Because of the critical role of the broadcasted messages in these applications, their authentication is very important to prevent message forgery attacks. Smart grid consists of plenty of low‐resource devices such as smart meters or phasor measurement units (PMUs) that are located in physically unprotected environments. Therefore, the storage and computational constraints of these devices as well as their security against physical attacks must be considered in designing broadcast authentication schemes. In this paper, we consider two communication models based on the resources of the broadcasters and receivers and propose a physical unclonable function (PUF)–based broadcast authentication scheme for each of them including Broadcast Authentication with High‐Resource Broadcaster (BA‐HRB) and Broadcast Authentication with Low‐Resource Broadcaster (BA‐LRB). We formally prove that both schemes are unforgeable and memory leakage resilient. Moreover, we analyze the performance of our proposed schemes and compare them with related works. The comparison results demonstrate a significant improvement in the storage and computational overhead of our schemes compared with the related works.     

A lightweight anonymous two‐factor authentication protocol for wireless sensor networks in Internet of Vehicles

Internet of Vehicles (IoV), as the next generation of transportation systems, tries to make highway and public transportation more secure than used to be. In this system, users use public channels for their communication so they can be the victims of passive or active attacks. Therefore, a secure authentication protocol is essential for IoV; consequently, many protocols are presented to provide secure authentication for IoV. In 2018, Yu et al proposed a secure authentication protocol for WSNs in vehicular communications and claimed that their protocol could satisfy all crucial security features of a secure authentication protocol. Unfortunately, we found that their protocol is susceptible to sensor capture attack, user traceability attack, user impersonation attack, and offline sink node's secret key guessing attack. In this paper, we propose a new authentication protocol for IoV which can solve the weaknesses of Yu et al's protocol. Our protocol not only provides anonymous user registration phase and revocation smart card phase but also uses the biometric template in place of the password. We use both Burrow‐Abadi‐Needham (BAN) logic and real‐or‐random (ROR) model to present the formal analysis of our protocol. Finally, we compare our protocol with other existing related protocols in terms of security features and computation overhead. The results prove that our protocol can provide more security features and it is usable for IoV system.     

An efficient and secure 3‐factor user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment

In the last decade, the number of web‐based applications is increasing rapidly, which leads to high demand for user authentication protocol for multiserver environment. Many user‐authentication protocols have been proposed for different applications. Unfortunately, most of them either have some security weaknesses or suffer from unsatisfactory performance. Recently, Ali and Pal proposed a three‐factor user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment. They claimed that their protocol can provide mutual authentication and is secure against many kinds of attacks. However, we find that Ali and Pal's protocol cannot provide user anonymity and is vulnerable to 4 kinds of attacks. To enhance security, we propose a new user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment. Then, we provide a formal security analysis and a security discussion, which indicate our protocol is provably secure and can withstand various attacks. Besides, we present a performance analysis to show that our protocol is efficient and practical for real industrial environment.     

An authenticated group key distribution mechanism using theory of numbers

A group key distribution protocol can enable members of a group to share a secret group key and use it for secret communications. In 2010, Harn and Lin proposed an authenticated group key distribution protocol using polynomial‐based secret sharing scheme. Recently, Guo and Chang proposed a similar protocol based on the generalized Chinese remainder theorem. In this paper, we point out that there are some security problems of Guo and Chang's protocol and propose a simpler authenticated group key distribution protocol based on the Chinese remainder theorem. The confidentiality of our proposed protocol is unconditionally secure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strongly secure ID‐based authenticated key agreement protocol for mobile multi‐server environments

To provide mutual authentication and communication confidentiality between mobile clients and servers, numerous identity‐based authenticated key agreement (ID‐AKA) protocols were proposed to authenticate each other while constructing a common session key. In most of the existing ID‐AKA protocols, ephemeral secrets (random values) are involved in the computations of the common session key between mobile client and server. Thus, these ID‐AKA protocols might become vulnerable because of the ephemeral‐secret‐leakage (ESL) attacks in the sense that if the involved ephemeral secrets are compromised, an adversary could compute session keys and reveal the private keys of participants in an AKA protocol. Very recently, 2 ID‐AKA protocols were proposed to withstand the ESL attacks. One of them is suitable for single server environment and requires no pairing operations on the mobile client side. The other one fits multi‐server environments, but requires 2 expensive pairing operations. In this article, we present a strongly secure ID‐AKA protocol resisting ESL attacks under mobile multi‐server environments. By performance analysis and comparisons, we demonstrate that our protocol requires the lowest communication overhead, does not require any pairing operations, and is well suitable for mobile devices with limited computing capability. For security analysis, our protocol is provably secure under the computational Diffie‐Hellman assumption in the random oracle model.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of the YAK protocol with formal security proof and security verification via Scyther

Hao proposed the YAK as a robust key agreement based on public‐key authentication, and the author claimed that the YAK protocol withstands all known attacks and therefore is secure against an extremely strong adversary. However, Toorani showed the security flaws in the YAK protocol. This paper shows that the YAK protocol cannot withstand the known key security attack, and its consequences lead us to introduce a new key compromise impersonation attack, where an adversary is allowed to reveal both the shared static secret key between two‐party participation and the ephemeral private key of the initiator party in order to mount this attack. In addition, we present a new security model that covers these attacks against an extremely strong adversary. Moreover, we propose an improved YAK protocol to remedy these attacks and the previous attacks mentioned by Toorani on the YAK protocol, and the proposed protocol uses a verification mechanism in its block design that provides entity authentication and key confirmation. Meanwhile, we show that the proposed protocol is secure in the proposed formal security model under the gap Diffie‐Hellman assumption and the random oracle assumption. Moreover, we verify the security of the proposed protocol and YAK protocol by using an automatic verification method such as the Scyther tool, and the verification result shows that the security claims of the proposed protocol are proven, in contrast to those of the YAK protocol, which are not proven. The security and performance comparisons show that the improved YAK protocol outperforms previous related protocols.     

SecMR – a secure multipath routing protocol for ad hoc networks

Multipath routing in ad hoc networks increases the resiliency against security attacks of collaborating malicious nodes, by maximizing the number of nodes that an adversary must compromise in order to take control of the communication. In this paper, we identify several attacks that render multipath routing protocols vulnerable to collaborating malicious nodes. We propose an on-demand multipath routing protocol, the secure multipath routing protocol (SecMR), and we analyze its security properties. Finally, through simulations, we evaluate the performance of the SecMR protocol in comparison with existing secure multipath routing protocols.     

A simple three‐party password‐based key exchange protocol

In three‐party password‐based key exchange (3PAKE) protocol, a client is allowed to share a human‐memorable password with a trusted server such that two clients can agree on a secret session key for secure connectivity. Recently, many 3PAKE protocols have been developed. However, not all of them can simultaneously achieve security and efficiency. Without any server's public key, this article will propose a simple three‐party password‐based authenticated key exchange scheme. Compared with the existing schemes, the proposed scheme is not only more efficient, but also is secure. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Authenticated key exchange protocol under computational Diffie–Hellman assumption from trapdoor test technique

This paper investigates authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol under computational Diffie–Hellman assumption in the extended Canetti–Krawczyk model. The core technical component of our protocol is the trapdoor test technique, which is originally introduced to remove the gap Diffie–Hellman (GDH) assumption for the public key encryption schemes. Our contributions are twofold.First, we clarify some misunderstandings of the usage of the trapdoor test technique in AKE protocols showing its adaptation to the AKE protocols is not trivial. We point out some errors in some recent work which attempts to make use of the trapdoor test technique to remove GDH assumption.Second, based on trapdoor test technique, we propose an efficient extended Canetti–Krawczyk secure AKE protocol under computational Diffie–Hellman assumption instead of GDH assumption. Additionally, our protocol does not make use of NAXOS trick and has a tight reduction. In comparison with all existing AKE protocols with the properties as previously mentioned, our protocol with only three exponentiations is most efficient. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SRGH: A secure and robust group‐based handover AKA protocol for MTC in LTE‐A networks

Machine‐type communication (MTC) is defined as an automatic aggregation, processing, and exchange of information among intelligent devices without humans intervention. With the development of immense embedded devices, MTC is emerging as the leading communication technology for a wide range of applications and services in the Internet of Things (IoT). For achieving the reliability and to fulfill the security requirements of IoT‐based applications, researchers have proposed some group‐based handover authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols for mass MTCDs in LTE‐A networks. However, the realization of secure handover authentication for the group of MTCDs in IoT enabled LTE‐A network is an imminent issue. Whenever mass MTCDs enter into the coverage area of target base‐station simultaneously, the protocols incur high signaling congestion. In addition, the existing group‐based handover protocols suffer from the huge network overhead and numerous identified problems such as lack of key forward/backward secrecy, privacy‐preservation. Moreover, the protocols fail to avoid the key escrow problem and vulnerable to malicious attacks. To overcome these issues, we propose a secure and robust group‐based handover (SRGH) AKA protocol for mass MTCDs in LTE‐A network. The protocol establishes the group key update mechanism with forward/backward secrecy. The formal security proof demonstrates that the protocol achieves all the security properties including session key secrecy and data integrity. Furthermore, the formal verification using the AVISPA tool shows the correctness and informal analysis discusses the resistance from various security problems. The performance evaluation illustrates that the proposed protocol obtains substantial efficiency compared with the existing group‐based handover AKA protocols.     

FPGA-based Physical Unclonable Functions: A comprehensive overview of theory and architectures

Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are a promising technology and have been proposed as central building blocks in many cryptographic protocols and security architectures. Among other uses, PUFs enable chip identifier/authentication, secret key generation/storage, seed for a random number generator and Intellectual Property (IP) protection. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are re-configurable hardware systems which have emerged as an interesting trade-off between the versatility of standard microprocessors and the efficiency of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). In FPGA devices, PUFs may be instantiated directly from FPGA fabric components in order to exploit the propagation delay differences of signals caused by manufacturing process variations. PUF technology can protect the individual FPGA IP cores with less overhead. In this article, we first provide an extensive survey on the current state-of-the-art of FPGA based PUFs. Then, we provide a detailed performance evaluation result for several FPGA based PUF designs and their comparisons. Subsequently, we briefly report on some of the known attacks on FPGA based PUFs and the corresponding countermeasures. Finally, we conclude with a brief overview of the FPGA based PUF application scenarios and future research directions.     

Unified security architecture and protocols using third party identity in V2V and V2I networks

VANETs have been developed to improve the safety and efficiency of transportation systems (V2V communications) and to enable various mobile services for the traveling public (V2I communications). For VANET technologies to be widely available, security issues concerning several essential requirements should be addressed. The existing security architectures and mechanisms have been studied separately in V2V and V2I networks, which results in duplicated efforts, security modules, and more complex security architectures. In this paper, we propose a unified security architecture and its corresponding security protocols that achieve essential security requirements such as authentication, conditional privacy, non‐repudiation, and confidentiality. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first study that deals with the security protocol in V2V as well as the handover authentication in V2I communications. Our proposal is characterized by a low‐complexity security framework, owing to the design and unification of the security architectures and modules. Furthermore, the evaluation of the proposed protocols proves them to be more secure and efficient than existing schemes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A secure and efficient password‐authenticated group key exchange protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Password‐authenticated group key exchange protocols enable communication parties to establish a common secret key (a session key) by only using short secret passwords. Such protocols have been receiving significant attention. This paper shows some security weaknesses in some recently proposed password‐authenticated group key exchange protocols. Furthermore, a secure and efficient password‐authenticated group key exchange protocol in mobile ad hoc networks is proposed. It only requires constant round to generate a group session key under the dynamic scenario. In other words, the overhead of key generation is independent of the size of a total group. Further, the security properties of our protocol are formally validated by a model checking tool called AVISPA. Security and performance analyses show that, compared with other related group key exchange schemes, the proposed protocol is also efficient for real‐world applications in enhancing the security over wireless communications. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secure multicast routing protocols in mobile ad‐hoc networks

A mobile ad‐hoc network (MANET) is a collection of autonomous nodes that communicate with each other by forming a multi‐hop radio network. Routing protocols in MANETs define how routes between source and destination nodes are established and maintained. Multicast routing provides a bandwidth‐efficient means for supporting group‐oriented applications. The increasing demand for such applications coupled with the inherent characteristics of MANETs (e.g., lack of infrastructure and node mobility) have made secure multicast routing a crucial yet challenging issue. Recently, several multicast routing protocols (MRP) have been proposed in MANETs. Depending on whether security is built‐in or added, MRP can be classified into two types: secure and security‐enhanced routing protocols, respectively. This paper presents a survey on secure and security‐enhanced MRP along with their security techniques and the types of attacks they can confront. A detailed comparison for the capability of the various routing protocols against some known attacks is also presented and analyzed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A pairing‐free identity‐based handover AKE protocol with anonymity in the heterogeneous wireless networks

Nowadays, seamless roaming service in heterogeneous wireless networks attracts more and more attention. When a mobile user roams into a foreign domain, the process of secure handover authentication and key exchange (AKE) plays an important role to verify the authenticity and establish a secure communication between the user and the access point. Meanwhile, to prevent the user's current location and moving history information from being tracked, privacy preservation should be also considered. However, existing handover AKE schemes have more or less defects in security aspects or efficiency. In this paper, a secure pairing‐free identity‐based handover AKE protocol with privacy preservation is proposed. In our scheme, users' temporary identities will be used to conceal their real identities during the handover process, and the foreign server can verify the legitimacy of the user with the home server's assistance. Besides, to resist ephemeral private key leakage attack, the session key is generated from the static private keys and the ephemeral private keys together. Security analysis shows that our protocol is provably secure in extended Canetti‐Krawczyk (eCK) model under the computational Diffie‐Hellman (CDH) assumption and can capture desirable security properties including key‐compromise impersonation resistance, ephemeral secrets reveal resistance, strong anonymity, etc. Furthermore, the efficiency of our identity‐based protocol is improved by removing pairings, which not only simplifies the complex management of public key infrastructure (PKI) but also reduces the computation overhead of ID‐based cryptosystem with pairings. It is shown that our proposed handover AKE protocol provides better security assurance and higher computational efficiency for roaming authentication in heterogeneous wireless networks.     

基于PUF的低开销物联网安全通信方案

将物理不可克隆函数（Physical Unclonable Function,PUF）与椭圆曲线上的无证书公钥密码体制相结合,提出一种面向物联网的安全通信方案,在节点设备不存储任何秘密参数的情况下,实现设备间消息的安全传递.方案无需使用高计算复杂度的双线性对运算,并提供了消息认证机制.安全性分析表明,该方案不仅能够抵抗窃听、篡改、重放等传统攻击,而且可以有效防范节点设备可能遭到的复制攻击.对比结果显示,相较于同类方案,该方案明显降低了设备的资源开销.     

Three-party encrypted key exchange without server public-keys

Three-party key-exchange protocols with password authentication-clients share an easy-to-remember password with a trusted server only-are very suitable for applications requiring secure communications between many light-weight clients (end users); it is simply impractical that every two clients share a common secret. Steiner, Tsudik and Waidner (1995) proposed a realization of such a three-party protocol based on the encrypted key exchange (EKE) protocols. However, their protocol was later demonstrated to be vulnerable to off-line and undetectable on-line guessing attacks. Lin, Sun and Hwang (see ACM Operating Syst. Rev., vol.34, no. 4, p.12-20, 2000) proposed a secure three-party protocol with server public-keys. However, the approach of using server public-keys is not always a satisfactory solution and is impractical for some environments. We propose a secure three-party EKE protocol without server public-keys     

A novel current controlled configurable RO PUF with improved security metrics

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are promising hardware security primitives which produce unique signatures. Out of several delay based PUF circuits, Configurable Ring Oscillator (CRO) PUF has got higher uniqueness and it is resilient against modelling attacks. In this paper, we present a novel Current controlled CRO (C-CRO) PUF in which inverters of RO uses different logic styles: static CMOS and Feedthrough logic (FTL). Use of different logic styles facilitates improvement of security metrics of PUF. The analysis of security metrics of the proposed architecture is carried out in 90 nm CMOS technology shows, using FTL logic leads to better security metrics. Proposed C-CRO PUF is also both power and area efficient. Further, in order to measure the vulnerability of proposed PUF, machine learning attack is carried out and the result shows FTL RO based C-CRO PUF is highly resilient to machine learning attack because of its non-linearity property.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a three‐party password‐based authenticated key exchange protocol with user anonymity using extended chaotic maps

Three‐party password‐authenticated key exchange (3PAKE) protocols allow two clients to agree on a secret session key through a server via a public channel. 3PAKE protocols have been designed using different arithmetic aspects including chaotic maps. Recently, Lee et al. proposed a 3PAKE protocol using Chebyshev chaotic maps and claimed that their protocol has low computation and communication cost and can also resist against numerous attacks. However, this paper shows that in spite of the computation and communication efficiency of the Lee et al. protocol, it is not secure against the modification attack. To conquer this security weakness, we propose a simple countermeasure, which maintains the computation and communication efficiency of the Lee et al. protocol. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.