Key Compromise Impersonation Attack Research Articles

Provably Secure ECC-Based Anonymous Authentication and Key Agreement for IoT

With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), maintaining data confidentiality and protecting user privacy have become increasingly challenging. End devices in the IoT are often deployed in unattended environments and connected to open networks, making them vulnerable to physical tampering and other security attacks. Different authentication key agreement (AKA) schemes have been used in practice; several of them do not cover the necessary security features or are incompatible with resource-constrained end devices. Their security proofs have been performed under the Random-Oracle model. We present an AKA protocol for end devices and servers. The proposal leverages the ECC-based key exchange mechanism and one-way hash function-based message authentication method to achieve mutual authentication, user anonymity, and forward security. A formal security proof of the proposed scheme is performed under the standard model and the eCK model with the elliptic curve encryption computational assumptions, and formal verification is performed with ProVerif. According to the performance comparison, it is revealed that the proposed scheme offers user anonymity, perfect forward security, and mutual authentication, and resists typical attacks such as ephemeral secret leakage attacks, impersonation attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and key compromise impersonation attacks. Moreover, the proposed scheme has the lowest computational and communication overhead compared to existing schemes.

A secure and efficient AKE scheme for IoT devices using PUF and cancellable biometrics

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow, there is an increasing need for secure and efficient authentication protocols for IoT devices. The design of IoT authentication schemes requires several essential features such as real two-factor security, Key Compromise Impersonation (KCI) resilience, and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS). In this paper, we perform a cryptanalysis of two state-of-the-art PUF-based Authentication and Key Exchange(AKE) schemes and show informally how they fail to achieve real two-factor security, PFS and suffer KCI, user traceability, and database attacks. To address these limitations, we propose an improved two-party AKE scheme between the user-device and the server based on a combination of a physically unclonable function (PUF) and a cancellable biometric (CB). Our proposed scheme provides real two-factor security, KCI resilience, PFS, and user untraceability, achieving all desired properties based on the Computational Diffie–Hellman (CDH) assumption in the random oracle model. To establish the security of our proposed scheme, we utilize formal analysis methods, including the RoR model and ProVerif, and perform an informal security analysis to demonstrate its resilience against potential attacks. Additionally, we analyze the computational and communication performance of our proposed scheme against related PUF-based schemes. Our proposed scheme exhibits a computational and communicational feasible overhead for deployment in the context of the IoT, with a lower magnitude than most previous related PUF-based schemes.Overall, our proposed scheme provides an efficient and secure authentication solution for IoT devices, with improved security and reduced communication overhead compared to previous PUF-based schemes. The combination of formal and informal analysis provides robust evidence of the strength and reliability of our proposed scheme, and its scalability makes it a viable solution for large-scale IoT deployments.

A secure and efficient three-factor authentication protocol for IoT environments

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an information carrier based on the Internet and traditional telecommunications network, which enables all ordinary physical objects that can be independently addressed to form an interconnected network. User authentication protocol is an essential technology for security and privacy in the IoT environment. This paper analyzes the security of Mirsaraei et al.'s three-factor authentication scheme for IoT environments (Mirsaraei et al., 2022 [31]), and finds that the scheme cannot provide users with untraceability, perfect forward secrecy or the resistance of key compromise impersonation attack. The article improves Mirsaraei et al.'s scheme and proposes a three-factor authentication protocol with perfect forward secrecy using elliptic curve cryptosystem, which retains the general process of Mirsaraei et al.'s scheme. The formal security analysis of the proposed protocol is carried out by ROR (Real-or-Random) model, and the formal security verification of the proposed protocol is implemented by Proverif tool. The cryptoanalysis results demonstrate that the proposed protocol makes up for the shortcomings of Mirsaraei et al.'s scheme in security and can resist more malicious attacks as opposed to recent schemes. Moreover, the performance analysis using MIRACL (Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic C/C++ Library) shows that, the proposed protocol has great advantages over analogical three-factor authentication schemes in terms of computational overhead and communication overhead.

A Lightweight, Secure Big Data-Based Authentication and Key-Agreement Scheme for IoT with Revocability

With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT), designing a secure two-factor authentication scheme for IoT is becoming increasingly demanding. Two-factor protocols are deployed to achieve a higher security level than single-factor protocols. Given the resource constraints of IoT devices, other factors such as biometrics are ruled out as additional authentication factors due to their large overhead. Smart cards are also prone to side-channel attacks. Therefore, historical big data have gained interest recently as a novel authentication factor in IoT. In this paper, we show that existing big data-based schemes fail to achieve their claimed security properties such as perfect forward secrecy (PFS), key compromise impersonation (KCI) resilience, and server compromise impersonation (SCI) resilience. Assuming a real strong attacker rather than a weak one, we show that previous schemes not only fail to provide KCI and SCI but also do not provide real two-factor security and revocability and suffer inside attack. Then, we propose our novel scheme which can indeed provide real two-factor security, PFS, KCI, and inside attack resilience and revocability of the client. Furthermore, our performance analysis shows that our scheme has reduced modular exponentiation operation and multiplication for both the client and the server compared to Liu et al.’s scheme which reduces the execution time by one third for security levels of λ = 128 . Moreover, in order to cope with the potential threat of quantum computers, we suggest using lightweight XMSS signature schemes which provide the desired security properties with λ = 128 bit postquantum security. Finally, we prove the security of our proposed scheme formally using both the real-or-random model and the ProVerif analysis tool.

Secure Authentication in the Smart Grid

Authenticated key agreement is a process in which protocol participants communicate over a public channel to share a secret session key, which is then used to encrypt data transferred in subsequent communications. LLAKEP, an authenticated key agreement protocol for Energy Internet of Things (EIoT) applications, was recently proposed by Zhang et al. While the proposed protocol has some interesting features, such as putting less computation on edge devices versus the server side, its exact security level is unclear. As a result, we shed light on its security in this paper through careful security analysis against various attacks. Despite the designers’ security claims in the random oracle model and its verification using GNY logic, this study demonstrates that this protocol has security weaknesses. We show that LLAKEP is vulnerable to traceability, dictionary, stolen smart glass, known session-specific temporary information, and key compromise impersonation attacks. Furthermore, we demonstrate that it does not provide perfect forward secrecy. To the best of our knowledge, it is the protocol’s first independent security analysis. To overcome the LLAKEP vulnerabilities, we suggested the LLAKEP+ protocol, based on the same set of cryptographic primitives, namely the one-way hash function and ECC point multiplication. Our comprehensive security analysis demonstrates its resistance to different threats, such as impersonation, privileged insider assaults, and stolen smart glass attacks, along with its resistance to sophisticated assaults, such as key compromised impersonation (KCI) and known session-specific temporary information (KSTI). The overhead of the proposed protocol is acceptable compared to the provided security level.

Security of a PUF Mutual Authentication and Session Key Establishment Protocol for IoT Devices

Recently, Zerrouki et al. proposed a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) mutual authentication and session key establishment protocol for IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol is interesting because it does not require the storage of any sensitive information on the local memory of the IoT device, which avoids many potential attacks, especially side-channel attacks. Therefore, we carefully investigate the security of Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol under the leakage assumption of the session key. Our findings are in the following. First, Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol fails to provide known-key security. That is, the adversary can impersonate not only the server to cheat the IoT device but also the IoT device to cheat the server when the adversary corrupts a session key between the server and the IoT device. Second, Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol suffers from the key-compromise impersonation attack. It means that the adversary can impersonate the IoT device to cheat the server if the adversary discloses the server’s secret key. Third, Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol does not support backward secrecy for the session key. That is, the adversary is always able to derive the session key from the previous session key. We also suggest the root cause of these security flaws in Zerrouki et al.’s PUF protocol. As a case study, our cryptanalysis results would promote a security model for more robust and efficient PUF authentication and session key establishment protocol. Moreover, our idea of the key compromise can be used to evaluate other novel PUF protocol designs.

An Anonymous Authentication and Key Update Mechanism for IoT Devices Based on EnOcean Protocol.

EnOcean, a commonly used control protocol in smart lighting systems, provides authentication, as well as message integrity verification services, and can resist replay attack and tamper attack. However, since the device identity information transmitted between sensors in smart lighting control systems is easily accessible by malicious attackers, attackers can analyze users’ habits based on the intercepted information. This paper analyzed the security of the EnOcean protocol using a formal analysis method based on the colored Petri net (CPN) theory and the Dolev–Yao attacker model and found that the protocol did not anonymize the device identity information and did not have a communication key update mechanism, so an attacker could easily initiate a key compromise impersonation attack (KCIA) after breaking the pre-shared communication key. To address the above security issues, this paper proposed an EnOcean-A protocol with higher security based on the EnOcean protocol. The EnOcean-A protocol introduced a trusted third-party server to send communication keys to communication devices because devices must obtain different communication keys from the trusted third-party server each time they communicated. Thus, this protocol could resist a KCIA and achieve forward security. Meanwhile, the device identity information was anonymized using a homomorphic hash function in the EnOcean-A protocol, and the dynamic update mechanism of the device identity information was added so that an attacker could not obtain the real identity information of the device. Finally, the formal analysis of the EnOcean-A protocol showed that the new protocol could resist a KCIA and ensure the anonymity and untraceability of the communication device, which had higher security compared with the EnOcean protocol.

A Privacy Enhanced Authentication Scheme for Securing Smart Grid Infrastructure

The rapid advancements in smart grid (SG) technology extend a large number of applications including vehicle charging, smart buildings, and smart cities through the efficient use of advanced communication architecture. However, the underlying public channel leads these services to be vulnerable to many threats. Recently, some security schemes were proposed to counter these threats. However, the insecurities of some of these schemes against key compromise impersonation (KCI) and related attacks or compromise on efficiency calls for a secure and efficient authentication scheme for SG infrastructure. A new scheme to secure SG communication is presented in this article to provide a direct device-to-device authentication among smart meter and neighborhood area network gateway. Designed specifically to resists KCI and related attacks, the proposed scheme is more secure and completes the authentication procedure by using the least communication cost as compared with related schemes, which is evident through security and efficiency comparisons.

An anonymous SIP authenticated key agreement protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography.

Designing a secure authentication scheme for session initial protocol (SIP) over internet protocol (VoIP) networks remains challenging. In this paper, we revisit the protocol of Zhang, Tang and Zhu (2015) and reveal that the protocol is vulnerable to key-compromise impersonation attacks. We then propose a SIP authenticated key agreement protocol (AKAP) using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). We demonstrate the correctness of the protocol using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN), and its security using the AVISPA simulation tool. We also evaluate its performance against those of Zhang, Tang and Zhu, and others.

ESSM: Formal Analysis Framework for Protocol to Support Algebraic Operations and More Attack Capabilities

The strand space model has been proposed as a formal method for verifying the security goals of cryptographic protocols. However, only encryption and decryption operations and hash functions are currently supported for the semantics of cryptographic primitives. Therefore, we establish the extended strand space model (ESSM) framework to describe algebraic operations and advanced threat models. Based on the ESSM, we add algebraic semantics, including the Abelian group and the XOR operation, and a threat model based on algebraic attacks, key-compromise impersonation attacks, and guess attacks. We implement our model using the automatic analysis tool, Scyther. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework by analysing several protocols, in particular a three-factor agreement protocol, with which we can identify new attacks while providing trace proofs.

An enhanced key exchange protocol exhibiting key compromise impersonation attacks resistance in mobile commerce environment

An enhanced key exchange protocol exhibiting key compromise impersonation attacks resistance in mobile commerce environment

A Provably Secure Three-Factor Authentication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

The wireless sensor network is a network composed of sensor nodes self-organizing through the application of wireless communication technology. The application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) requires high security, but the transmission of sensitive data may be exposed to the adversary. Therefore, to guarantee the security of information transmission, researchers propose numerous security authentication protocols. Recently, Wu et al. proposed a new three-factor authentication protocol for WSNs. However, we find that their protocol cannot resist key compromise impersonation attacks and known session-specific temporary information attacks. Meanwhile, it also violates perfect forward secrecy and anonymity. To overcome the proposed attacks, this paper proposes an enhanced protocol in which the security is verified by the formal analysis and informal analysis, Burross-Abadii-Needham (BAN) logic, and ProVerif tools. The comparison of security and performance proves that our protocol has higher security and lower computational overhead.

Security Analysis of a Lightweight Identity-Based Two-Party Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol for IIoT Environments

Internet of Things brings convenience to the social life, at the same time, putting forward higher requirements for the security of data transmission and storage. Security incidents based on industrial Internet of Things have occurred frequently recently, which should be given full consideration. The identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol can solve these security threats to a certain extent. Recently, a lightweight identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol for Industrial Internet of Things, called ID-2PAKA protocol, was claimed to achieve secure authentication and meet security properties. In this paper, we show that the ID-2PAKA protocol is insecure in identity authentication and cannot resisting ephemeral key compromise impersonation attack.

An Anonymous and Efficient ECC-Based Authentication Scheme for SIP

Session initiation protocol (SIP), a widely used signal protocol for controlling multimedia communication sessions, is under numerous attacks when performing the authentication steps between the user and server. So secure authentication schemes are needed to be presented for SIP. Recently, Arshad et al. advanced novel schemes for SIP using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and claimed their schemes can resist various attacks. However, Lu et al. found that Arshad et al.’s scheme cannot resist trace and key-compromise impersonation attacks; hence, it cannot provide proper mutual authentication. Meanwhile, an enhanced scheme was advanced by Lu et al. and they stated that their scheme can stand up to possible known attacks. Nevertheless, in this paper, we conclude that Arshad and Nikooghadam’s scheme is insecure against impersonation attack and Lu et al.’s scheme is still vulnerable to impersonation attack. To overcome these weaknesses of their schemes, we present a novel anonymous ECC-based scheme for SIP. Security analysis and performance analysis show that our proposed scheme can resist various known attacks and efficient in the meantime.

A survey of authenticated key agreement protocols for multi-server architecture

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of authenticated key agreement protocols, which have been proposed for multi-server architectures. The growing use of cloud-based services has made multi-server authentication protocols a necessity. For a brief insight into the topic, the break-fix history of these protocols, vital functional and security requirements have been summarized. Protocols are categorized based upon the cryptographic mechanism used. To evaluate the trade-off between security and performance, comprehensive analysis concerning performance and security of multiple protocols, from each category, has been carried out. Some profound results of this survey include: 1) the majority of existing protocols engage the registration server (RS) in the mutual authentication, which results in extra communication overhead and creates a computational bottleneck on RS end. Secondly, majority of the hash-based protocols with offline RS are vulnerable to key compromise impersonation attacks. Thirdly very few schemes consider the efficient and demanded revocation of compromised participants. Finally, among all these protocols, pairing-based designs are the most computationally expensive.

An efficient hash-based authenticated key agreement scheme for multi-server architecture resilient to key compromise impersonation

During the past decade, rapid advances in wireless communication technologies have made it possible for users to access desired services using hand-held devices. Service providers have hosted multiple servers to ensure seamless online services to end-users. To ensure the security of this online communication, researchers have proposed several multi-server authentication schemes incorporating various cryptographic primitives. Due to the low power and computational capacities of mobile devices, the hash-based multi-server authenticated key agreement schemes with offline Registration Server (RS) are the most efficient choice. Recently, Kumar-Om presented such a scheme and proved its security against all renowned attacks. However, we find that their scheme bears an incorrect login phase, and is unsafe to the trace attack, the Session-Specific Temporary Information Attack (SSTIA), and the Key Compromise Impersonation Attack (KCIA). In fact, all of the existing multi-server authentication schemes (hash-based with offline RS) do not withstand KCIA. To deal with this situation, we propose an improved hash-based multi-server authentication scheme (with offline RS). We analyze the security of the proposed scheme under the random oracle model and use the ‘‘Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications’’ (AVISPA) tool. The comparative analysis of communication overhead and computational complexity metrics shows the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

A Provably Secure and Lightweight Patient-Healthcare Authentication Protocol in Wireless Body Area Networks

Burgeoning wireless technology developments have positively affected nearly every aspect of human life, and remote patient-healthcare monitoring through the internet is no exception. By employing smart gadgets, wireless body area networks, and cloud-based server platforms, patients can submit their sensor-captured readings in real-time to e-health cloud servers and ultimately to medical professionals so that the latter may treat patients appropriately at any time and in any place. To make the system reliable, an authenticated key agreement is required for the participating entities in this system. Many remote patient-healthcare monitoring protocols have been seen so far; however, reliance on wireless technology brings many security challenges for existing protocols. Recently, Xu et al. presented a new patient healthcare monitoring protocol; however, we demonstrate that it is vulnerable to many attacks, including replay attacks and key compromise impersonation attacks, and also that it suffers from privacy issues. Thereafter, we have proposed an improved scheme and formally analyzed its security features by implementing BAN logic and an automated simulation tool.

An Anonymous Device to Device Authentication Protocol Using ECC and Self Certified Public Keys Usable in Internet of Things Based Autonomous Devices

Two party authentication schemes can be good candidates for deployment in Internet of Things (IoT)-based systems, especially in systems involving fast moving vehicles. Internet of Vehicles (IoV) requires fast and secure device-to-device communication without interference of any third party during communication, and this task can be carried out after registration of vehicles with a trusted certificate issuing party. Recently, several authentication protocols were proposed to enable key agreement in two party settings. In this study, we analyze two recent protocols and show that both protocols are insecure against key compromise impersonation attack (KCIA) as well as both lack of user anonymity. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved protocol that does not only resist KCIA and related attacks, but also offers comparable computation and communication. The security of proposed protocol is tested under formal model as well as using well known Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic along with a discussion on security features. While resisting the KCIA and related attacks, proposed protocol also provides comparable trade-of between security features and efficiency and completes a round of key agreement in just 13.42 ms, which makes it a promising candidate to be deployed in IoT environments.

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

SummaryHao 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.

An improved authentication scheme for Internet of things

Designing a secure authentication scheme is of great importance to the practical applications of the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2017, Wang et al. proposed an improved mutual authentication scheme for the embedded devices and a server over Kalra et al.’s and Chang et al.’s. And they provided a formal proof for their scheme. However, their scheme is still insecure and cannot resist against key compromise impersonation (KCI) attack. In the paper, we first demonstrate the shortcoming of Wang et al.’s scheme, and then we carry out an improvement over Wang et al.’s scheme to address the revealed issue by using an auxiliary server.