Efficient Message Authentication Code Research Articles

An Efficient Message Authentication Code Based on Modified MD5-384 Bits Hash Function and Quasigroup

Cryptographic hash functions and HMACs are used to achieve various security goals such as message integrity, message authentication, digital signatures, and entity authentication. This article proposes (1) a new hash function (QGMD5-384) and (2) an efficient message authentication code (QGMAC-384) based on a quasigroup. A quasigroup is a non-associative algebraic structure and its number grows exponentially with its order. Note that the existing hash functions and HMACs that use quasigroups are vulnerable to prefix and suffix attacks. The security of the proposed hash function is analyzed by comparing it with the MD5 and SHA-384. It is found that the proposed QGMD5-384 is more secure. Also, QGMAC-384 is analyzed against brute force and forgery attacks and it is found to be resistant to these attacks. The performance of the new schemes is compared with their counterparts, such as SHA-384 and HMAC-SHA-384. It is observed that QGMD5-384 and QGMAC-384 are slightly slower than MD5 and HMAC-MD5, respectively, but faster than both the SHA-384 and the HMAC-SHA-384.

Security Analysis of an Efficient Null Space-Based Homomorphic MAC Scheme Against Tag Pollution Attacks in RLNC

Recently, Esfahani, Mantas, and Rodriguez proposed a homomorphic message authentication code (MAC) scheme for the random linear network coding (RLNC) to resist tag pollution attacks (TPAs), and also presented the security analysis. As Esfahani et al. said, their scheme is based on the null space properties of Kehdi and Li, and the main contribution lies in adding the process of swapping when generating the tags for data packets. However, in this paper, we first point out that Esfahani et al.'s swapping technique is not essential for the TPA security, because the underlying non-swapping homomorphic MAC scheme has been secure against TPA and the process of swapping only improves the TPA security with a non-negligible factor. More importantly, we find that the security proof of Esfahani et al. is incorrect and misguided. In particular, according to Esfahani et al. suggestion, one should enlarge the number of neighbor nodes to reduce the probability of the TPA. However, this paper gives contrary suggestions in Esfahani et al.'s work by presenting the precise proof for the proposed homomorphic MAC scheme.

An efficient MAC-based scheme against pollution attacks in XOR network coding-enabled WBANs for remote patient monitoring systems

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) play a pivotal role to remote patient monitoring which is one of the main applications of m-Health. However, WBANs comprise a subset of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), and thus, they inherit the limitations of WSNs in terms of communication bandwidth, reliability, and power consumption that should be addressed so that WBANs can reach their full potential. Towards this direction, XOR network coding (NC) is a promising solution for WBANs. Nevertheless, XOR NC is vulnerable to pollution attacks, where adversaries (i.e., compromised intermediate nodes) inject into the network corrupted packets that prevent the destination nodes from decoding correctly. This has as a result not only network resource waste but also energy waste at the intermediate nodes. In this sense, pollution attacks comprise a serious threat against WBANs (i.e., resource-constrained wireless networks) that should be addressed so that WBANs can reap the benefits of XOR NC. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an efficient message authentication code (MAC)-based scheme that provides resistance against pollution attacks in XOR NC-enabled WBANs for remote patient monitoring systems. Our proposed scheme makes use of a number of MACs which are appended to the end of each native packet. Our results show that the proposed MAC-based scheme is more efficient compared to other competitive schemes for securing XOR NC against pollution attacks in resource-constrained wireless networks, in terms of communication bandwidth and computational complexity.

Comment on “An Efficient Homomorphic MAC with Small Key Size for Authentication in Network Coding”

Quite recently, Cheng and Jiang [1] designed an efficient homomorphic message authentication code (MAC) scheme for authentication in network coding, and claimed that the newly proposed scheme can achieve much higher security level with a formal security proof. However, in this comment, we will point out there exists a design flaw in their proposed scheme, leading to an inherent vulnerability, and also show an inaccuracy in their formal security proof. We hope that by identifying the design flaw, similar mistakes can be avoided in future design of homomorphic MAC authentication for network coding.

An Efficient Homomorphic MAC with Small Key Size for Authentication in Network Coding

Recently, homomorphic message authentication code (MAC) schemes have been proposed to resist against pollution attacks in network coding. However, existing methods face a common challenge: the generated MAC t belongs to a small finite field F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">q</sub> , which means that an adversary could attack by randomly guessing the value of t, and succeed with probability 1/q. Since q is a predetermined system parameter which is typically set as 2 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">8</sup> , the resulted security 1/256 could be unsatisfactory in practice. In this paper, we propose an efficient homomorphic MAC for authentication in network coding. The proposed method achieves a reliable security parameter 1/q <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">l</sup> using only one key, where l could be chosen according to different security requirements. Compared with previous approaches that using multiple tags, the proposed homomorphic MAC has both low computation and communication overheads.

An efficient MAC scheme for secure network coding with probabilistic detection

Network coding is vulnerable to pollution attacks, which prevent receivers from recovering the source message correctly. Most existing schemes against pollution attacks either bring significant redundancy to the original message or require a high computational complexity to verify received blocks. In this paper, we propose an efficient scheme against pollution attacks based on probabilistic key pre-distribution and homomorphic message authentication codes (MACs). In our scheme, each block is attached with a small number of MACs and each node can use these MACs to verify the integrity of the corresponding block with a high probability. Compared to previous schemes, our scheme still leverages a small number of keys to generate MACs for each block, but more than doubles the detection probability.Meanwhile, our scheme is able to efficiently restrict pollution propagation within a small number of hops. Experimental results show that our scheme is more efficient in verification than existing ones based on public-key cryptography.

Password-authenticated Key Exchange using Efficient MACs

This paper is concerned with password authenticated key agreement protocols. Designing such protocols represents an interesting challenge since there is no standard way of choosing a password that achieves an optimum trade-off between usability and security. Indeed, passwords belonging to a highly structured language are essentially equivalent to low entropy strings. A fundamental goal is that of obtaining secure and efficient protocols, with optimum computational complexity, round complexity and communication efficiency. These properties make them ideal candidates for mobile devices. We present DH-BPAKE1 which is an improved version of the protocol presented in previous work (DH-BPAKE). The construction builds upon the encrypted key exchange protocol of Bellovin and Merritt augmented with a key confirmation round based on the use of efficient message authentication codes. We discuss in detail the security properties of the two efficient message authentication schemes which form the basic building blocks of the protocol. In addition, we formally prove the security of protocol DH-BPAKE1 in a modified version of the model of Boyko et al.

A simple micro-payment scheme

The micro-payment system is an important technique in electronic commerce. The high-value payment system is not suitable for a micro-payment system because the requirements are different. To meet sufficient security for all participants in electronic commerce, a micro-payment system makes it possible to make small payment through electronic communication networks. In this paper, we propose a simple and secure micro-payment system which can be used for purchasing information goods on the network. The new micro-payment system is developed using a tamper-resistant device (i.e., smart card), an efficient Message Authentication Code (MAC) technique, and the concept of overall network security. In our proposed scheme, we achieve the authentication of the legal users, protection of the integrity of transaction messages, and prevention of duplicate spending. This new micro-payment system is a simple, efficient and economical system.