REPS-AKA3: A secure authentication and re- authentication protocol for LTE networks

Abstract

Key agreement and authentication are the most significant phases in LTE systems since many malicious attacks may occur in these systems. For this reason, the LTE system employs standard EPS-AKA protocol to provide security of the communication system. However, the LTE system still suffers from different security threats such as Impersonation, DoS, MitM, and Replay attacks. In this paper, a Robust Authentication and Key Agreement protocol (REPS-AKA3) has been suggested to resolve the security issues in LTE systems. The proposed REPS-AKA3 combines the Public Key Infrastructure, symmetric key Infrastructure, and full mutual authentication between all network nodes. First, we propose an efficient AKA protocol to enable mutual authentication between the users (i.e., UE) and the LTE network (i.e., MME and HSS nodes). Then, we present a secure procedure to enable key agreement in NAS and AS layers properly. Finally, we suggest a secure and fast re-Authentication procedure to reduce the AKA latency in the next attach. Thus, the REPS-AKA3 method provides the security goals (i.e., strong mutual authentication, and adequate confidentiality) in AS and NAS layers appropriately. Formal verification of the proposed REPS-AKA3 protocol is checked and validated using the AVISPA tool. The evaluation results illustrate that the REPS-AKA3 can achieve all the security goals, and it is secure against different malicious attacks. In addition, the performance analysis of the REPS-AKA3 scheme is compared with other AKA schemes, including the standards EPS-AKA protocol. The performance results indicate that the REPS-AKA3 method improves the network performance in terms of bandwidth consumption, computational cost, and storage overhead parameters. Consequently, the suggested protocol can be a trustable and efficient candidate for AKA protocols in LTE networks.