Self-healing Key Distribution Research Articles

Shared group session key-based conditional privacy-preserving authentication protocol for VANETs

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs) have significantly enhanced driving safety and comfort by leveraging vehicular wireless communication technology. Due to the open nature of VANETs, conditional privacy-preserving authentication protocol should be offered against potential attacks. Efficient and secure authentication among vehicles in VANETs are important requirements, but there are various limitations in the existing conditional privacy-preserving authentication protocols for securing VANETs. To cope with the inherent issues, we propose a conditional privacy-preserving authentication protocol based share group session key (SGSK) by integrating the self-healing key distribution technique, blockchain, and MTI/C0 protocol. In our protocol, we use SGSK instead of the time-consuming Certificate Revocation List (CRL) checking, and we revoke malicious vehicles by updating SGSK. It is shared among unrevoked vehicles within a domain and across-domain. As a result, when a malicious revoked vehicle enters a new domain, it is difficult for it to access the system and send false messages. Furthermore, our protocol can not only achieve computation efficiency by reducing the number of computing operations of bilinear pairing but also resist various attacks while keeping conditional privacy protection. We implement our protocol in the Hyperledger Fabric platform. The experimental results show that our protocol is available to revoke 180 malicious vehicles in across-domain scenarios within one second, and it can meet the requirement of verifying 600 messages per second easily. Moreover, our comprehensive performance evaluations demonstrates that our protocol outperforms other approaches in terms of vehicle revocation checking cost, computation overhead, and communication overhead. In addition, to show the feasibility and validity of our protocol, we use SUMO and NS2 to simulate the actual VANET scenario and validate the efficiency and performance of our protocol. Simulation results prove the practicability of our protocol for VANETs.

SAVE: Efficient Privacy-Preserving Location-Based Service Bundle Authentication in Self-Organizing Vehicular Social Networks

Self-organizing vehicular social networks underpin many location-based services (LBS) such as those that collect and share environmental information (e.g., traffic and weather conditions) among vehicular users and the infrastructure. There are, however, security and privacy considerations in the sharing of such information, and one popular approach is to design lightweight authentication solutions for LBS. Existing approaches may suffer from limitations such as significant computational and/or storage overheads, latency and time delays, and consequently impractical for resource-constrained on-board units. In this paper, we propose an efficient privacy-preserving LBS bundle authentication scheme (hereafter referred to as SAVE) through secure redundancy filtering in self-organizing vehicular social networks. Firstly, an enhanced self-healing key distribution protocol with distributed revocation is proposed to reduce communication cost for retransmitting lost key material and resist free-riding attacks to enhance the authentication efficiency. Then, based on it, a generalized version of online/offline aggregate signature is proposed to achieve batch LBS bundle verification based on arbitrary one-way function holding the property of multiplicative homomorphism. Finally, an efficient zero-knowledge range proof based on lightweight one-way hash chain is designed to decide the redundancy of LBS bundles without disclosing vehicular users’ location privacy. Formal security proof and extensive simulation results demonstrate that our proposed SAVE achieves identity privacy, two levels of location privacy and the practicability in reality.

Self-Healing Group Key Distribution Facilitating Source Authentication Using Block Codes

Secure group key distribution is essential for many group-oriented applications such as sensor networks, multimedia broadcast services, and Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios. There are several challenges and requirements in designing secure group key distribution. Among them, computational efficiency, communication efficiency, adaptability to dynamic group membership change, robustness to various security threats, self-healing capacities, and source authentication are desirable. It is very challenging to design an efficient group distribution that satisfies all the requirements and challenges. Based on block codes, we propose an efficient self-healing group key distribution that facilitates both message source authentication and secure group key distribution, where the source identification and authentication can facilitate intrusion detection and identification. Both the privacy of the group key and the authentication of message sources are computationally secure. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first codes-based scheme that satisfies all the above requirements and facilitates message source authentication. The merits of the proposed scheme include the following: (1) it is highly efficient in terms of computation and communication, (2) it provides self-healing capacities for unstable environments, (3) it is very robust to various security threats and attacks, (4) it facilitates both message source authentication and secure group key distribution, and (5) it greatly improves the communication performance, compared to the state-of-the-art schemes. The security properties are analyzed, and the performance evaluations confirm its efficiency and practicality.

An Efficient Authentication Scheme Based on Semi-Trusted Authority in VANETs

With the development of intelligent transportation systems, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are widely used in safety driving, and so on. However, existing signature schemes, such as pseudonym- and group-based schemes, have certain problems, such as the need for a certificate distribution and certificate revocation lists (CRLs). With such schemes, the vehicle needs to store a valid certificate generated by the management center. Simultaneously, the receiver needs to check the CRLs prior to message authentication. CRLs require large amounts of storage space and computational and communication resources. In addition, many such schemes are built on a trusted authority and do not meet real-world needs. Thus, we propose an efficient authentication scheme based on semitrusted authority in VANETs. In this scheme, we combine the self-healing key distribution method with a certificateless signature in a semitrusted authority environment, such that the receivers do not require to query the CRLs. Therefore, the vehicles do not have to store the CRLs, thereby saving storage space and communication resources. This also reduces the computational costs and improves the efficiency of the message authentication. Since the proposed scheme is built on a semitrusted authority, it is a more realistic approach.

A Novel Mutual Healing Group Key Distribution Scheme forWSN

In order to solve the security problems in the existing self-healing group key distribution strategies, this paper proposes a new mutual healing group key distribution scheme. Based on the access polynomials, this scheme can hide the keys by using hash function and enable the communication group nodes to restore the lost session keys through the use of broadcasting messages and private keys. Besides, this scheme can restore the key of the last time with the help of neighbor nodes, which is impossible for the self-healing key distribution scheme. Analytical results show that the proposed scheme can guarantee the forward and backward security and resist the collusion attack, which is suitable for WSN.

Self-healing key distribution for self-organised group management in MANET

In mobile ad hoc networks, most algorithms are lacking a self-organised grouping mechanism for ensuring the scalability and performance of key management. In this paper, we propose to establish self-healing key distribution to the self-organised group members. For this, a self-organised group establishing algorithm is proposed which requires users interacting with their neighbours. This algorithm locally elects the group manager who is responsible for the establishment, distribution, and management of group keys. After establishing the self-organised group and group manager, the collusion resistance threshold self-healing key distribution will be applied within each group for group key establishment. The elected group manager is responsible for distributing and updating the keys. Then using the established keys, secure communication among the mobile nodes will be performed to provide confidentiality.

Self-healing key distribution for self-organised group management in MANET

In mobile ad hoc networks, most algorithms are lacking a self-organised grouping mechanism for ensuring the scalability and performance of key management. In this paper, we propose to establish self-healing key distribution to the self-organised group members. For this, a self-organised group establishing algorithm is proposed which requires users interacting with their neighbours. This algorithm locally elects the group manager who is responsible for the establishment, distribution, and management of group keys. After establishing the self-organised group and group manager, the collusion resistance threshold self-healing key distribution will be applied within each group for group key establishment. The elected group manager is responsible for distributing and updating the keys. Then using the established keys, secure communication among the mobile nodes will be performed to provide confidentiality.

Anti-collusive self-healing key distributions for wireless networks

We introduce three efficient anti-collusive self-healing key distribution schemes with t-revocation capability. Our proposed key distribution mechanism uses one-way hash chain. We obtain reduced storage, communication and computation costs over the previous approaches, which make our designs scalable to very large groups in highly mobile, volatile and hostile wireless networks. Our schemes are properly analysed in an appropriate security model and are proven to be computationally secure and achieve both forward and backward secrecy. Also our schemes can resist collusion between the newly joint users and the revoked users. Our set-up allows each user to choose its joining session at its will, whereas the session for user's revocation is pre-selected by the group manager. Unlike the existing self-healing key distribution schemes, rejoining of revoked users is permitted in our schemes at a later session with new identities. These features facilitate the group manager no longer to execute expensive traitor tracing mechanisms to keep track of individual compromised users.

Self-Healing Key-Distribution Scheme with Collusion Attack Resistance Based on One-Way Key Chains and Secret Sharing in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, self-healing key-distribution schemes are used to ensure that, even if the message packets that are broadcast in some sessions get lost, the group nodes can still recover the lost session keys simply by using their personal secret keys and broadcast messages that have been received without requesting additional transmissions from the group manager. These schemes reduce network traffic, decrease the group manager's workload, and lower the risk of node exposure through traffic analysis. However, most existing schemes have many deficiencies, such as high overhead for storage and communication and collusion attacks. In this paper, we have proposed a modified, self-healing, key-distribution scheme based on one-way key chains and secret sharing. Our scheme has the properties of constant storage, lower communication overhead, long lifespan, forward secrecy, backward secrecy, and resistance to collusion attacks.

Long-lived Self-healing Group Key Distribution Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

The self-healing group key distribution with revocation can deal with the session key distribution problem for secure group communication over an unreliable wireless network, with the capability of resistance to the packet loss and the collusion attack. However, since previous self-healing group key distribution schemes are restricted to m sessions, they will be reset frequently, which leads to large power and bandwidth consumption. In order to prolong the life span of the self-healing group key distribution schemes and save energy, we propose an efficient long-lived δ -self-healing group key distribution scheme with revocation and collusion resistance capabilities for wireless sensor networks in this paper. Our proposed scheme is capable of supporting infinite sessions by updating the personal secret of group members during each session and performing a partial revocation. Compared to previous schemes under same conditions, security and performance analysis results show that our proposed scheme not only resolves the lifetime extension problem, but also achieves better security performance with lower storage and communication costs.

Collusion resistant self-healing key distribution in mobile wireless networks

A fundamental concern of any secure group communication system is key management and wireless environments create new challenges. One core requirement in these emerging networks is self-healing. In systems where users can be offline and miss updates, self-healing allows a user to recover lost session keys and get back into the secure communication without putting extra burden on the group manager. Clearly, self-healing must only be available to authorised users. This paper fixes the problem of collusion attack in an existing self-healing key distribution scheme and provides a highly efficient scheme as compared to the existing works. It is computationally secure, resists collusion attacks made between newly joined users and revoked users and achieves forward and backward secrecy. Our security analysis is in an appropriate security model. Unlike the existing constructions, our scheme does not forbid revoked users from rejoining in later sessions.

Self-Healing Key Distribution Schemes for Wireless Networks: A Survey

The objective of self-healing key distribution is to enable group users to recover session keys by themselves, without requesting additional transmissions from the group manager (GM), even when they miss some broadcast messages. One major benefit of the self-healing key distribution mechanism is the reduction of energy consumption due to the elimination of such additional transmission. Also in some applications, e.g., uni-directional broadcast channel from the GM, the self-healing key distribution mechanism seems to be the ideal solution. Desired features of self-healing key distribution schemes include energy awareness, short broadcast message, efficient users addition, revocation and so on. A primary challenge is managing the trade-off between providing an acceptable level of security and conserving scarce resources in particular energy which is critical for wireless network operations. Over a decade, a great number of self-healing key distribution schemes have been proposed for establishing a group key amongst a dynamic group of users over an unreliable, or lossy, network. In this paper a comprehensive survey is conducted on the state-of-the-art in the field of self-healing key distribution. First, we clarify the security requirements of self-healing key distribution scheme for their special application environment. Then, we present a classification of self-healing key distribution schemes according to different cryptographic primitives, and give an insight to their features and goals. Furthermore, we consider several problems, namely authentication on broadcast messages, sponsorization and mutual-healing, related to the robustness of self-healing key distribution schemes. At last, we delineate their similarities and differences and outline several future research directions.

Cryptanalysis of an Efficient Threshold Self-Healing Key Distribution Scheme

In 2009, Han et al. proposed an efficient threshold self-healing key distribution scheme with sponsorization for infrastructureless wireless networks. They claimed that the key distribution scheme satisfies the forward security, i.e., any internal user who has been revoked can not generate a new session key. In this paper,an attack method against this key distribution scheme's forward security was presented. Furthermore, this attack method can also be applied to this scheme's backward security.Thus,the original threshold self-healing key distribution scheme is insecure.

A mutual-healing key distribution scheme in wireless sensor networks

How to establish secure session keys is one of the central tasks for wireless sensor network communications. General key distribution schemes for traditional computer networks could not be directly shifted to wireless sensor network environments as broadcast messages may be lost due to sensor network internal factors or external attacks. Self-healing key distribution schemes, therefore, have been proposed to address packet loss issues since 2002. The essential issue that self-healing key distribution mechanism addressed is the fixed-number of broadcast messages (excluding the last broadcast message) loss. In other words, a node could not recover its new session keys if a node has missed more than a fixed number broadcast messages or the last broadcast message in a self-healing key distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks. This paper aims to address this emerged issue and provide a new key distribution scheme: mutual-healing key distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks. This mutual-healing key distribution can enable a node in a wireless sensor network to recover its new session key although its last broadcast message was lost. A formal definition for mutual-healing key distribution will also be proposed in this paper. The proposed mutual-healing key distribution scheme is based on bilinear pairings. The scheme is collusion-free for any coalition of non-authorized nodes. Each node's private key has nothing to do with the number of revoked nodes and can be reused as long as it is not disclosed. The storage overhead for each node is a constant.

Self-healing key distribution scheme with long service time

Self-healing key distribution schemes for broadcast encryption are capable of recovering missed group keys and resisting a collusion attack of up to t revoked users. However, since previous schemes have been considered only m sessions, it does not suitable to support infinite sessions. In the paper, we propose an efficient δ-self healing key distribution scheme with revocation capability. The proposed scheme can support infinite sessions by updating the private key of users and supporting a partial revocation. The communication overhead of the proposed scheme is compared with several previous works.

Computationally secure self-healing key distribution with revocation in wireless ad hoc networks

This paper introduces a novel self-healing technique for key distribution with revocation and demonstrates how it improves the efficiency over the previous approaches while using the existing idea of secret sharing or revocation polynomial in designing self-healing key distribution schemes with revocation. Unlike the existing approaches, our self-healing mechanism does not need to send the history of revoked users and consequently enables better performance gain over the previous approaches in terms of storage, communication and computation complexity. We propose and analyze a generalized self-healing key distribution using a vector space access structure in order to reach more flexible performance of the scheme. We describe three efficient constructions for scalable self-healing key distribution with t-revocation capability. We provide a rigorous treatment of the security of our constructions in an appropriate security framework and show that they are computationally secure and achieve both forward and backward secrecy.

Anti-collusive Self-healing Key Distribution Scheme with Revocation Capability

Anti-collusive Self-healing Key Distribution Scheme with Revocation Capability

Efficient Long-Lived Self-Healing Key Distribution Scheme

Some improvements on three aspects have been made for the self-healing key distribution scheme proposed by Staddon et al.First,an efficient long-lived scheme which is unconditional secure instead of computational secure is proposed to lower the cost of computation and communication.Second,the capability of session key recovery of members is strengthened,which enables the members to recover some reasonable session keys in a certain special situation.Third,the number of broadcast messages and that of personal keys stored in users' memory are reduced.

Efficient threshold self-healing key distribution with sponsorization for infrastructureless wireless networks

Self-healing key distribution schemes are particularly useful when there is no network infrastructure or such infrastructure has been destroyed. A self-healing mechanism can allow group users to recover lost session keys and is therefore quite suitable for establishing group keys over an unreliable network, especially for infrastructureless wireless networks, where broadcast messages loss may occur frequently. An efficient threshold self-healing key distribution scheme with favorable properties is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the distance between two broadcasts used to recover the lost one is alterable according to network conditions. This alterable property can be used to shorten the length of the broadcast messages. Secondly, any more than threshold-value users can sponsor a new user to join the group for the subsequent sessions without any interaction with the group manager. Thirdly, the storage overhead of the self-healing key distribution at each group user is a polynomial over a finite field, which will not increase with the number of sessions. In addition, if a smaller group of users up to a threshold-value were revoked, the personal keys for non-revoked users can be reused.

Flaws in some self-healing key distribution schemes with revocation

Dutta and Mukhopadhyay have recently proposed some very efficient self-healing key distribution schemes with revocation. The parameters of these schemes contradict some results (lower bounds) presented by Blundo et al. In this paper different attacks against the schemes of Dutta and Mukhopadhyay are explained: one of them can be easily avoided with a slight modification in the schemes, but the other one is really serious.