A Lightweight Digital Signature Based Security Scheme for Human-Centered Internet of Things

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) comprises of large number of smart devices that can exchange sensed data by availing online services. Smart devices can directly interact with the human beings for sensing the healthcare parameters and transmitting to a central repository. During the data exchange, it is mandatory to secure the messages between sender and receiver to handle the malicious human based attacks. For providing secure communication, a number of signature-based schemes are explored in literature but smart devices need more lightweight operations by ensuring desired security strengths. The main problem during signature based approaches is the computational overhead due to large real numbers required for signature and verification processes. This paper presents a light weight shortened complex digital signature algorithm for providing secure communication between smart devices in human centered IoT. We have used less extensive operations to achieve signature and verification processes like human beings do signatures on legal documents and verify later as per witness. We have also presented a multi-option parameter selection to use a signature-verification pair of expressions at particular index by adopting the common practice of human beings for using different signatures as per document criticality level. It enhances the security strength to guard against traffic analysis attacks. We have developed an experimental setup where a number of cell phones and smart devices are considered for secure communication using existing and proposed digital signature schemes. Results demonstrate the supremacy of our scheme as compared to preliminaries.