Key Revocation Research Articles

Orthus v2 Authentication Protocol Enhancement, and Supporting Enterprise Architecture

Abstract The message negotiations involved in the Orthus authentication protocol for self-contained realms are a matter of prior publication. Orthus provides Authentication of a compliant entity to a realm, and a clear demarcation between realm membership verification and service access. Version II of the protocol introduces some security enhancements. Furthermore, functional descriptions of the supplementary application and functioning of supporting services and architecture in the Enterprise Environment are provided. Namely, those protocol exchanges necessary for the establishment of realm-to-realm trusts, and hierarchies, including a remote realm location protocol, and security hardening functions such as key revocation and re-issue procedures are described.

Parallel key management scheme for mobile ad hoc network based on traffic mining

One of the main challenges in the mobile ad hoc network is to ensure secure communication, because of its dynamic topology and lack of centralised control. In this study, the authors propose a parallel key management scheme which combines the cluster-based key management and the partially distributed key management approach. The network is partitioned into clusters, where the cluster head (CH) plays the role of certification authority. The initial public key of each member is assigned by CH based on its identity (ID). The keys are updated periodically based on the node's ID and its trust value. The secret key of the node is generated by n key serving nodes, elected based on the trust value. The communication between the nodes is carried out by using the session key generated mainly based on the frequent traffic pattern exists between the nodes. The frequent traffic pattern is identified by mining the past network traffic data by using the backtracking search algorithm. The proposed scheme provides a mechanism for key generation, distribution and revocation. This scheme satisfies all security requirements and ensures forward and backward secrecies. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by simulation.

Enhanced Key Management Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

With rapid development and extensive use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), it is urgent to enhance the security for WSNs, in which key management is an effective way to protect WSNs from various attacks. However, different types of messages exchanged in WSNs typically have different security requirements which cannot be satisfied by a single keying mechanism. In this study, a basic key management protocol is described for WSNs based on four kinds of keys, which can be derived from an initial master key, and an enhanced protocol is proposed based on Diffie-Hellman algorithm. The proposed scheme restricts the adverse security impact of a captured node to the rest of WSNs and meets the requirement of energy efficiency by supporting in-network processing. The master key protection, key revocation mechanism, and the authentication mechanism based on one-way hash function are, respectively, discussed. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed from the aspects of computational efficiency, storage requirement and communication cost, and its antiattack capability in protecting WSNs is discussed under various attack models. In this paper, promising research directions are also discussed.

Authentic Data Access Scheme for Variant Disruption-Tolerant Networks

Mobile nodes in military environments such as a battlefield or a hostile region are likely to suffer from intermittent network connectivity and frequent partitions. Disruption-tolerant network (DTN) technologies are becoming successful solutions that allow wireless devices carried by soldiers to communicate with each other and access the confidential information or command reliably by exploiting external storage nodes. However, the problem of applying CP-ABE in decentralized DTNs introduces several security and privacy challenges with regard to the attribute revocation, key escrow, and coordination of attributes issued from different authorities. In this paper, we propose a secure data retrieval scheme using CP-ABE for decentralized DTNs where multiple key authorities manage their attributes independently. We demonstrate how to apply the proposed mechanism to securely and efficiently manage the confidential data distributed in the disruption-tolerant military network. Since some users may change their associated attributes at some point (for example, moving their region), or some private keys might be compromised, key revocation (or update) for each attribute is necessary in order to make systems secure. This implies that revocation of any attribute or any single user in an attribute group would affect the other users in the group. It may result in bottleneck during rekeying procedure, or security degradation due to the windows of vulnerability if the previous attribute key is not updated immediately.

An implementation of enhanced public key infrastructure

In this paper, we present the implementation of an enhanced public key infrastructure (PKI) which supports not only conventional public key cryptography (PKC) but also identity-based cryptography (IBC). In addition, we discuss the possible way of placing together IBC and PKI as well as solving the problems of user secret key revocation of PKI and IBC. As a proof of concept, an IBC framework is incorporated into Enterprise Java Bean Certified Authority (EJBCA) and the performance is reported.

Provable Secure ID Based Designated Verifier Proxy Signature Scheme without Pairings

Identity (ID) based cryptosystem simplifies the key management and revocation problem. Proxy signature is an active cryptographic research area. As a variant of proxy signature, researchers proposed many ID-based designated verifier proxy signature (IBDVPS) schemes from pairings. Now a days, pairing is regarded as one of the very expensive cryptographic operation since the cost of computing a single pairing operation is much higher than the scalar multiplication on elliptic curve group. On the other side, map-to-point hash function is also very expensive operation. To simplify the key management, to reduce the size of the signature and to save the time of running the cryptographic operations, we propose the first IBDVPS scheme based on elliptic curve discrete log problem (ECDLP). Our scheme is secure against adaptive chosen message and identity attacks. Due to the design of saving running time and reducing the signature size, our proposed scheme can be more applicable in the practical applications than the previously proposed schemes.

A Survey on Key Management and Certificate Exchange in Mobile Adhoc Network

Owing to the wireless and dynamic nature, MANETs are susceptible to security attacks from malicious nodes. Key management, certificate exchange and certificate revocation mechanisms play a vital role in securing the network from attacks. When the certificate of a malicious node is revoked, it is denied from all activities and isolated from the network. This paper surveys various existing mechanisms in key management and certificate exchange. Key management methods are broadly classified into two types namely, contributory and distributive methods. Here, certificate distribution and exchange techniques are classified as trust-based and non-trust based methods. Certificate revocation techniques are classified as voting-based, cluster-based and trust-based schemes. The merits and demerits of each mechanism along with the performance are analyzed. Finally, a comparison table is designed to compare the existing mechanisms in an effective manner.

A Secure key Distribution and Management Scheme for Home Area Network in Smart Grid

Securing the network communication for the smart grid, it is important that a secure key distribution and management scheme is needed. Advanced metering Infrastructure (AMI) is considered as integral part of the smart grid that collects and analyzes the information of energy consumption using the communication network. In order to achieve data confidentiality, privacy, and authentication in AMI, various crypto algorithms are used, such as demand key distribution and management schemes. Investigation on properly designed key distribution and management scheme for securely gathering both individual and aggregated meter’s readings is one of the critical requirements. In this paper, we propose a secure key distribution for Home Area Network (HAN) in smart grid. In this paper, we propose a new key distribution and management scheme, which uses identification scheme of Wu – Hsu and tailored to smart grid. We also give the scheme for key update/freshness and key revocation. Specifically, a group ID based mechanism is proposed to establish the keys for a large amount of users with small overload.

An Efficient and Adaptive Mutual Authentication Framework for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network-Based Applications

Robust security is highly coveted in real wireless sensor network (WSN) applications since wireless sensors' sense critical data from the application environment. This article presents an efficient and adaptive mutual authentication framework that suits real heterogeneous WSN-based applications (such as smart homes, industrial environments, smart grids, and healthcare monitoring). The proposed framework offers: (i) key initialization; (ii) secure network (cluster) formation (i.e., mutual authentication and dynamic key establishment); (iii) key revocation; and (iv) new node addition into the network. The correctness of the proposed scheme is formally verified. An extensive analysis shows the proposed scheme coupled with message confidentiality, mutual authentication and dynamic session key establishment, node privacy, and message freshness. Moreover, the preliminary study also reveals the proposed framework is secure against popular types of attacks, such as impersonation attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks, and information-leakage attacks. As a result, we believe the proposed framework achieves efficiency at reasonable computation and communication costs and it can be a safeguard to real heterogeneous WSN applications.

Hierarchical Certificate-Based Encryption: Definition and an Efficient Construction

Certificate-based encryption is a new paradigm which was introduced by Gentry to address the complex public key revocation problem in traditional public key cryptosystems. It represents an interesting and potentially useful balance between traditional public-key encryption and identity-based encryption. In this paper, we introduce the notion of hierarchical certificate-based encryption that preserves the advantages of certificate-based encryption such as implicit certificate and key-escrow free while inheriting the properties of hierarchical identity-based encryption. We formalize the definition of hierarchical certificate-based encryption and also propose a concrete hierarchical certificate-based encryption scheme that is chosen-ciphertext secure under the hardness of bilinear Diffie-Hellman problem in the random oracle model.

The Case for Dynamic Key Distribution for PKI-Based VANETS

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are becoming a reality where secure communication is a prerequisite. Public key infrastructure (PKI) can be used to secure VANETs where an onboard tamper proof device (TPD) stores a number of encryption keys which are renewed upon visiting a certificate authority (CA). We previously proposed a dynamic key distribution protocol for PKI-based VANETs [1] to reduce the role of the TPD. A vehicle dynamically requests a key from its nearest road side unit. This request is propagated through network infrastructure to reach a CA cloud and a key is securely returned. A proposed key revocation mechanism reduced the number of messages needed for revocation through Certificate Revocation List (CRL) distribution. In this paper, performance evaluation and security of the proposed dynamic key distribution is investigated analytically and through network simulation. Furthermore, extensive analysis is performed to demonstrate how the proposed protocol can dynamically support efficient and cost-reduced key distribution. Analysis and performance evaluation results clearly make the case for dynamic key distribution for PKI-based VANETS.

Secure and Efficient Key Management Scheme in MANETs

InMobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) security has become a primary requirements.Thecharacteristics capabilities of MANETsexposeboth challenges and opportunities in achieving key security goals,such as confidentiality,access control,authentication, availability, integrity, and non- repudiation.Cryptographic techniques are widely used for secure communications in both TCP and UDPnetworks. Most cryptographic mechanisms, such as symmetric and asymmetric cryptography,often involve the use of cryptographic keys. However, all cryptographic techniques will beunsecure or inefficient if the key management is weak. Key management is also a central component inMANET security. The main purpose of key management is to provide secure methods for handlingcryptographic keying algorithm. The tasks of key management includes keys for generation, distribution and maintenance. Key maintenance includes the procedures for key storage, keyupdate, key revocation, etc. In MANETs, the computational load and complexityfor key management are strongly subject to restriction by the node's available resources and thedynamic nature of network topology. A number of key management schemes have beenproposed for MANETs. In this article, we present a survey of the research work on keymanagement in MANETs according to recent publications.

Information theory and cryptography based secured communication scheme for cooperative MIMO communication in wireless sensor networks

Emerging cooperative MIMO communication is a promising technology in improving communication performance for wireless sensor networks. However, the security problems inherent to cooperative communications also arise. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer secured communication scheme for cooperative MIMO communication in wireless sensor networks to overcome the external and active compromised nodes attacks. The scheme combines cryptographic technique implemented in higher layers with data assurance analysis at the physical layer to provide better communication security. An efficient key management system is proposed for the cryptographic processes. It provides secured communication and routing using a small number of keys shared between the clusters which cooperate on data transmission and reception. Although cryptography can ensure the confidentiality in the communications between authorized participants, it usually cannot prevent the attacks from compromised nodes. The situation where the cooperative nodes are compromised and try to corrupt the communications by sending garbled signals is also investigated in this paper. A novel information theory based detector that can identify the active compromised nodes and recover the symbols in transmission process at physical layer is proposed. When the compromised nodes are detected, the key management system calls the key revocation to isolate these nodes and reconfigure the cooperative MIMO network. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm for compromised nodes detection is effective and efficient, and the accuracy of received information is significantly improved.

Key management protocol with end-to-end data security and key revocation for a multi-BS wireless sensor network

Focusing on a large-scale wireless sensor network with multiple base stations (BS), a key management protocol is designed in this paper. For securely relaying data between a node and a base station or two nodes, an end-to-end data security method is adopted by this protocol. Further employing a distributed key revocation scheme to efficiently remove compromised nodes then forms our key management protocol celled multi-BS key management protocol (MKMP). Through performance evaluation, we show that MKMP outperforms LEDS Ren et al. (IEEE Trans Mobile Comput 7(5):585–598, 2008) in terms of efficiency of resilience against the node capture attack. With the analysis of key storage overheads, we demonstrate that MKMP performs better than mKeying Wang et al. (A key management protocol for wireless sensor networks with multiple base stations. In: Procceedings of ICC'08, pp 1625–1629, 2008) in terms of this overhead.

A Dynamic Key Management Scheme Based on Secret Sharing for Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Networks

Since wireless sensor networks (WSN for short) are often deployed in hostile environments in many applications, security becomes one of the critical issues in WSN. Moreover, due to the limitation of the sensor nodes, traditional key management schemes are not suitable for it. Thereby,a feasible and efficient key management scheme is an important guarantee for WSN to communicate securely. For the moment, many protocols have been proposed and each has its own advantages. However, these protocols cannot provide sufficient security in many cases, such as node capture attack, which makes WSN more vulnerable than traditional wireless networks. Key protection and revocation issues must be considered with special attention in WSN. To address these two issues, we propose a dynamically clustering key management scheme based on secret sharing for WSN. The scheme combined the hierarchical structure of wireless sensor networks with dynamic key management scheme. The analysis results show that the scheme has strong security and resistance of captured attack, as well as low communicational overhead, and it well meets the requirement of scalability. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i3.2300

A privacy preserving authentication scheme with flexible identity revocation in people-centric sensing

People-Centric Sensing (PCS) is a new sensing paradigm, in which people’s context information is described by attributes. However, due to the nature of “people centric” and dynamicity, the prevalence of PCS faces two main challenges, including authentication with privacy preservation and complex identity revocation.In this paper, we propose the ABS-KR, an attribute-based signature scheme supporting key revocation. ABS-KR inherits the advantage of most attribute-based signature schemes, that is, a signature only shows that whether the user owns attributes satisfying the verification policy, no more information about his identifier or attributes, implementing authentication with privacy preservation. Furthermore, we introduce a mediator responsible for the key revocation to reduce the workload of the attribute authority managing users’ attributes and generating secret key for them. The core idea of performing flexible revocation is to divide a user’s secret key into two shares, and give one part to the mediator, making the user asking the mediator for help to generate a valid signature. Before answering the user, the mediator performs a revocation check for the user’s identifier and claimed attributes. If and only if the signer owns unrevoked attributes satisfying the policy, he can generate a valid signature. In addition, the mediator realizes instantaneous key revocation through revocation check during signing a message. Moreover, our ABS-KR supports monotone policies in the form of attribute trees under the computational Diffie–Hellman assumption.

Novel distributed key revocation scheme for wireless sensor networks

ABSTRACTKey revocation plays an essential role in ensuring the confidentiality of wireless sensor networks following the compromise of one or more of the network nodes. The distributed key revocation protocol presented by Chan et al. has a rapid reaction time and avoids the single‐point failure problem inherent in centralized schemes. However, the scheme is computationally complex, requires a large storage space, and incurs high communication overheads. Accordingly, this paper proposes a novel distributed, scalable, and cost‐effective key revocation scheme based on Blom's t‐secure property. In the proposed approach, any node identified as having a malicious behavior by t or more sensor nodes is categorized as a compromised node, and its keys are immediately revoked from the entire network. The proposed scheme not only satisfies the rigorous definition of a distributed key revocation protocol but also yields a significant improvement over Chan's revocation scheme in terms of a lower storage space requirement, a reduced communication overhead, and a lower computational cost. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Efficient Noninteractive Secure Protocol Enforcing Privacy in Vehicle-to-Roadside Communication Networks

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have attracted extensive attentions in recent years for their promises in improving safety and enabling other value-added services. In this paper, we propose an efficient noninteractive secure protocol preserving the privacy of drivers in vehicle-to-roadside (V2R) communication networks with the ability of tracing malicious drivers only by a third trusted party (TTP), who is assumed to be fully trusted. Our proposed protocol can provide these complex requirements depending on symmetric cryptographic algorithms. The drivers can change the symmetric key used for message encryption with each message transmission and find noninteractively new values to be correctly used for verification and tracing in case of malicious behavior. The advantages of symmetric cryptographic algorithms over asymmetric algorithms are the faster processing speed and the shorter message length which makes it suitable for real-time applications such as V2R communications. An efficient key revocation scheme will be also described.

Secure Key Distribution for the Smart Grid

To secure the network communication for the smart grid, it is important that a secure key management scheme is needed. The focus of this paper is on the secure key distribution for the smart grid. In this paper, we first overview the key management scheme recently proposed by Wu-Zhou and show it is vulnerable to the man-in-the-middle attack. Then we propose a new key distribution protocol and demonstrate it is secure and efficient for smart grid network. Applying traditional PKI to the smart grid requires significant work and maintenance of the public key. By using Kerberos to smart grid may lose authentication from the third party due to power outages. Therefore, we propose a scheme for a smart grid using a trusted third party which not only has no issue on key revocation, but also the third party can be easily duplicated in case power outages occur.

A survivability model in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we present a survivability evaluation model and analyze the performance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) under attack and key compromise. First, we present a survivability evaluation model of WSNs by representing the states of WSNs under attack. Here, the survivability of WSNs is expressed as a continuous time Markov Chain to describe the status of real WSNs. We propose a threshold condition to trigger the transition between the states of WSNs in the face of DoS attack. According to the threshold conditions, the survivability model is capable of taking action(s) and enables the formalization of the effect of action(s). We present an analytical model and numerical analysis to show the feasibility of our work in terms of availability, survivability, and cost.Second, we present a survivability model and evaluation of WSNs under key compromise. Sensor nodes in a network can be captured by an adversary. The compromised node can be identified by one of the intrusion detection mechanisms. After detecting the compromised node, the key in the node has to be revoked. In this paper, we present the effect of key compromise and key revocation in WSNs. We additionally present a survivability evaluation model using the SHARPE simulation tool in terms of availability.