Shared Secret Key Research Articles

Design and Implementation of Secure Communication using Elliptic Curve Cryptograph between Wireless Sensor Nodes

Wireless Sensor Networks is an emerging trend and has become gradually popular across wide range. A key distributional protocol is intended to safely provide authentic motes with secret keys system using Elliptic Curve Cryptography functions. The convention is a variation of the Diffie_Hellman convention utilizing Elliptic Curve Cryptography. It’s agreement of a key convention that permits pair of gatherings, both having a elliptic open and closed key, to build up a mutual secret key over an uncertain channel. This shared secret key may be either utilized as key or used to determine another key which would then be able to be utilized to subsequent correspondences utilizing a cipher of symmetric key. The use of advanced encryption standard for the encrypt and decrypt of the data also ensures that security is never flawed. Therefore Elliptic curve cryptograph is a best candidate for providing secure communication between Wireless Sensor Networks.

Robust Frame Synchronization Scheme for Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution with Simple Process

In continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) systems, high-quality data synchronization between two legitimate parties, Alice and Bob, is the premise of the generation of shared secret keys. Synchronization with specially designed frames is an efficient way, but it requires special modulating devices to generate these special frames. Moreover, the extra requirement of special modulating devices makes it technically impossible for some passive preparation schemes. We propose a novel approach to realize synchronization in this paper, which is different from those special-frame-based methods. In our proposed scheme, Alice publishes parts of the original signals as the synchronization frames and Bob takes these frames to perform the synchronization algorithm. Besides, a synchronization feature is applied to deal with phase shifts. The simulation results based on practical data demonstrate that the proposed synchronization scheme not only maintains a high success rate but simplifies the data processing flow at the same time, which dramatically reduces the computational complexity.

A new fast double-chaotic based Image encryption scheme

In this paper, a new scheme for image encryption based on a double chaotic pseudo random generator (DCPG), simple XOR and shift rotations operations is proposed. The DCPG is a combination of both Tent and Chebyshev chaotic and so it needs three values of control parameters which are used as shared secret keys. The encryption consists of two rounds. In the first round, the hash value of the input image is computed using SHA-512. This value also is used as a forth shared secret key and from which, 4 amounts of the shift rotations are extracted. A pseudorandom sequence is generated using the proposed DCPG with the same size of the input image. This sequence and also the input image are divided into blocks of size 1 × 8. Each block of input image is processed with the corresponding block of the pseudorandom sequence using simple shift rotation and XOR operation. To extend the effect of the original image one pixel change to all the pixels of the cipher image, a second round of XOR operation is added. The proposed scheme has many advantages. It is highly secure due to two reasons. Firstly, it uses four secret keys for encryption which provides a large key space to overcome all types of brute force attacks. Secondly, the amounts of shift rotation used are input image dependent which achieves a strong resistance against chosen plaintext attacks. Also, it is more efficient compared to other recently existing schemes as it consists only of two rounds of simple operations. Security analysis of scheme has been provided. Based on the results, our scheme is highly secure with a reduced encryption time and so it can be used for many applications which require real time secure image communications.

Secure Collaborative Key Management System for Mobile Cloud Data Storage

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is the combination of mobile computing, cloud computing and wireless networks to make mobile thin client devices resource-rich in terms of storage, memory computational power and battery power by remotely executing the wide range of mobile application’s data in a pay-per-use cloud computing environment. In MCC, one of the primary concern is the security and privacy of data stored in cloud. The existing techniques are not efficient to manage secret keys during key generation and key distribution processes. The objective of this project work is to develop a secure collaborative key management system (SCKMS) for mobile cloud data storage by implementing by the cryptographic techniques for file encryption and file decryption, key generation, key encryption, key distribution and key decryption processes. In our proposed methodology, DriverHQ public cloud infrastructure is used for accessing the secure file as Storage as a Service (SaaS) mechanism. For generating the secret key, the proposed work implemented with Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) algorithm, it produces the sequence of random numbers for every time. The keys are distributed using general Secret key Sharing Scheme (SSS). The key pattern matching process is implemented to spilt the secret key into three partitions and sent it to client (mobile devices), cloud server and decryption server. The decryption server key and cloud sever key are mapped with client key. The key shares are grouped together using key-lock pair mechanism and it achieves key integrity during untrusted medium communication. The proposed work also eliminates key escrow and key exposure problems. The files are encrypted and decrypted using Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm. The RSA algorithm is more vulnerable against the brute force attack, because of using larger key size. Thus, the proposed SCKMS achieves data confidentiality and data integrity in mobile cloud storage data when compared to existing Key Management System (KMS). The work also reduces encryption & decryption computation and storage overhead in client mobile devices, and minimizes the energy consumption of the mobile devices efficiently.

Secure Cloud Storage using Secret Key Sharing and Proxy Re-Encryption Based Third Party Auditing Service

Cloud Computing (CC) provides an easy way to access and store the information by vast remote servers, instead of using personal computer. There is no physical control over personal data by user, hence some security issues may arise for users and organization to secure the data in cloud. The sensitive data can be hacked by attackers, so the integrity of data stored in cloud is a major concern for users. In this research work, the data integrity can be ensured by using Third Party Storage Auditing Service (TPSAS), where it satisfies all the requirements of users in cloud. The ultimate aim of this research is to avoid the unauthorized access of user’s data stored in the cloud. In this paper, two major problems are considered for attaining the integrity of data in the cloud. The first one is, the unauthorized user tries to modify the data, which is solved by the proposed TPSAS. The second problem considered in this research is, since the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is semi trustable it can be malfunctioned at any time, which can be solved based on the secure secret key sharing algorithm and proxy re-encryption methodology. The secure secret key sharing is implemented based on the Shamir key sharing algorithm and the proxy re-encryption process is implemented based on the bear and lion proxy re-encryption methodology.

Secure key agreement based on ordered biometric features

In this work, we propose a novel secure key agreement protocol, Secure Key Agreement using Pure Ordered Biometrics (SKA-POB), in which the cryptographic keys are generated using an ordered set of biometrics, without any extra shared secret data or keys. The proposed approach is instantiated using iris biometrics. Our protocol makes use of hash functions and HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) as the only cryptographic primitives; thus, it is not cryptographically resource-hungry. We also propose and integrate a window-based comparison strategy and a window reset method in SKA-POB. This way, performance is maximized without sacrificing security. Furthermore, we propose an intelligent fake block generation and distribution strategy to hide the genuine blocks in transit, which increases the resistence of our proposed protocol against correlation attacks. SKA-POB protocol works in round manner, allowing to successfully terminate with key establishment as early as possible so that the complexity is reduced for both client and server sides. Additionally, we employ multi-criteria analyses for our proposed SKA-POB protocol and we provide verification results in terms of performance analysis together with randomness, distinctiveness and attack complexity through security analysis. Results show that highly random and computationally secure keys can be generated with almost no error and with very low complexity.

Efficient arbitrated quantum signature scheme without entangled states

In the most arbitrated quantum signatures (AQSs), the signers and verifiers need to perform the quantum key distribution protocols or some other protocols to share secret keys before signing a signature. In some schemes, the entangle states, which are not easily implemented, have to be prepared and distributed among the partners. Based on single photon and one-way functions, a new AQS scheme without entangled states is proposed. In our scheme, the signer generates a quantum signature on the classical message with his/her private key and the one-way function. The arbitrator communicates with the signer through a classical unencrypted channel. The signer and verifier need not perform the key distribution protocol before signing a message. On the other hand, without entangled states, our scheme can reduce the complexity of implementation. Then, our scheme is more efficient than the similar schemes. At the same time, our scheme is secure against forgery attack and disavowal attack.

Data Access Control and Secured Data Sharing Approach for Health Care Data in Cloud Environment

One of the vital hitches in today's world of research is ensuring the security of the Cloud. This security can be ensured by inventing new techniques that may possibly help in safeguarding and assuring the optimal status of information in the cloud. Contents that are stored in the Cloud are majorly affected by the attempts made by illegitimate sources that are trying to access it. The security level of the contents that are stored in the cloud can be guaranteed by focusing on a task that helps in both securing and verifying the data. In order to manage the security level, (SE-KAC) which is also known as Scalable and Enhanced Key-Aggregate Cryptosystem was initiated in current research method. But this method of securing and sharing secret keys cannot be used in the stage of decryption. However this problem can be resolved in proposed method since it introduces sharing of the data securely using a method called Improved Diffie Hellman Key Exchange Algorithm (IDHKE). By introducing the Improved Diffie Hellman Key Exchange Algorithm, securely sharing the secret keys to the receivers of the data has been achieved. The secret key details can be exchanged securely using this method. By this means it makes sure its affirmations. Here the key is safely generated using one random prime number, a master secret key and parameter value. Intended for the secured and consistent access control limitation, an encryption which is attribute-based is used. The proposed method thus ensures the protected data transmission with exact and trustworthy validation.

Key Distribution System Based on Hadamard Designs

The problem of key distribution in a community for providing secure communication between its participants is studied. To solve this problem, key predistribution systems can be used, in which each user receives some key information that can later be used to independently calculate required shared secret keys for conferences they participate in. Such key distribution systems can be based on different structures, such as error-correcting codes and combinatorial designs. The drawback of such systems is the possibility of collusive attacks, when traitors within the system can form a coalition and use their key information to try to calculate shared secret keys of other users. But the secrecy of keys is guaranteed by the system when the number of traitors in the coalition does not exceed a threshold defined by the system structure. In this paper, a key distribution system is based on combinatorial designs and, in particular, on Hadamard 3-design that guarantees the secrecy of communications in the presence of coalitions with less than three users. New notions of combinatorial span and combinatorial rank of a subset of Hadamard code that are required for the study of the resilience of the system to collusive attacks are introduced. The probability of successful collusive attack on an arbitrary conference against the cardinality of coalition is calculated for this system.

On the using of Rényi’s quadratic entropy for physical layer key generation

As a promising way for establishing secret keys, physical layer key generation has been broadly studied, which typically extracts secret keys with wireless channel characteristics. The existing schemes proved that temporal channel variations, channel reciprocity and spatial de-correlation of wireless channel greatly affected the performance of physical layer key generation. In this paper, the application of collision entropy (Rényi’s quadratic entropy) for improving physical layer key generation is discussed. Specifically, after collecting sufficient channel measurements, a channel measurement evaluation mechanism based on collision entropy is implemented to determine the adequacy of these measurements. Consequently, some consecutive measurements with smaller collision entropies are dropped and the reserved measurements are applied as input of the following process. Based on the evaluation mechanism, an adaptive and efficient key generation scheme is proposed. The proposed scheme consists of five components: channel probing, the evaluation mechanism, the adaptive quantization, information reconciliation and privacy amplification. To validate this scheme, several experiments in real environments are conducted. Different from the existing schemes, the received signal strength (RSS) measurements derived by heterogeneous devices are used as channel measurements. The results show that: (1) compared with homogeneous devices, RSS sequences of heterogeneous devices have more discrepancies and these discrepancies make key generation more challenging; (2) the proposed evaluation mechanism can effectively reduce bit mismatch rate and enhance the efficiency of information reconciliation; (3) compared with other schemes, the proposed key generation scheme can efficiently generate shared secret keys between heterogeneous transceivers in real environments.

Code-based physical layer secret key generation in passive optical networks

To guarantee secure transmissions is an important target of passive optical networks (PONs). Modern standards for PONs, however, impose the adoption of symmetric encryption algorithms in downstream but do not do the same in upstream, where the secret keys may be transmitted in clear. Because of non-ideal optical network components, this exposes the PON to the risk of eavesdropping. In this paper, a novel technique for securely generating and sharing secret keys in passive optical networks is proposed. It exploits randomness at the physical layer and key distillation based on coding techniques. The main attack strategies are considered and the design parameters of the proposed protocol are discussed, both in analytical terms and through numerical examples. The cost in terms of complexity with respect to standard approaches affected by possible vulnerabilities is also assessed.

Interference between independent photonic integrated devices for quantum key distribution.

Advances in quantum computing are a rapidly growing threat towards modern cryptography. Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides long-term security without assuming the computational power of an adversary. However, inconsistencies between theory and experiment have raised questions in terms of real-world security, while large and power-hungry commercial systems have slowed wide-scale adoption. Measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD) provides a method of sharing secret keys that removes all possible detector side-channel attacks which drastically improves security claims. In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate a key step required to perform MDI-QKD with scalable integrated devices. We show Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between weak coherent states carved from two independent indium phosphide transmitters at 431MHz with a visibility of 46.5±0.8%. This Letter demonstrates the feasibility of using integrated devices to lower a major barrier towards the adoption of QKD in metropolitan networks.

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution under K-distributed strong atmospheric turbulence

Free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two distant parties to share secret keys with information-theoretic security, which can pave the way for satellite-ground quantum communication to set up a global network for sharing secret message. However, free-space channels in the presence of atmospheric turbulence are affected by losses and fluctuating transmissivity which further affect the quantum bit error rate and the secure key rate. To implement free-space QKD, it is indispensable to study the effect of atmospheric turbulence. Different models have been used to describe the probability distribution for channel transmission coefficient under atmospheric turbulence, including the log-normal distribution and K distribution. In this paper, we focus on free space measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) under K-distributed strong atmospheric turbulence. The MDI-QKD can close all loopholes on detection and achieve a similar performance to QKD, relying on time-reversed version of entanglement-based QKD protocol. Threshold post-selection method is adopted to restrain detrimental effects of the atmospheric turbulence, which is based on the selection of the intervals with higher channel transmissivity. By combining the general MDI-QKD system model with this method, we present a framework for the optimal choice of threshold. Our simulation result shows that the optimal threshold is dependent on the turbulence intensity and expected channel loss. Furthermore, compared with the original MDI-QKD protocols, the proposed protocol with threshold post-selection method can acquire a considerable better performance in key rate, especially in regions of high turbulence and high loss. What is more, this is instructive to the building of a practical free-space MDI-QKD system with better performance.

TRICKS—Time TRIggered Covert Key Sharing for Controller Area Networks

There are dozens of proposals for securing the controller area network (CAN); however, only a few of them are concerned on how to share secret keys between CAN nodes. Recently, some works have used the non-destructive property of CAN arbitration in order to exchange a secret key and achieve information theoretic security for the key exchange. In our proposals, we exploit both delays and the non-destructive arbitration of CAN to achieve a secure key exchange. While our approach is less efficient when it comes to bandwidth, we do not require any kind of additional hardware and we build our implementation on the software layer which is accessible for any CAN-based application. To boost efficiency, we finally bootstrap secret keys by means of the guessing-resilient protocols, such as encrypted-key-exchange (EKE) and simple password exponential key exchange (SPEKE). In principle, a few dozen frames suffice for a secure key-exchange between two CAN nodes. We discuss several protocol versions and extensions for the case of more than two parties. We also present the experimental results on modern automotive-grade controllers to prove the performance of our solution.

Guessing probability under unlimited known-plaintext attack on secret keys for Y00 quantum stream cipher by quantum multiple hypotheses testing

Although quantum key distribution is regarded as promising secure communication, security of Y00 protocol proposed by Yuen in 2000 for the affinity to conventional optical communication is not well-understood yet; its security has been evaluated only by the eavesdropper’s error probabilities of detecting individual signals or masking size, the number of hidden signal levels under quantum and classical noise. Our study is the first challenge of evaluating the guessing probabilities on shared secret keys for pseudorandom number generators in a simplified Y00 communication system based on quantum multiple hypotheses testing theory. The result is that even unlimitedly long known-plaintext attack only lets the eavesdropper guess the shared secret keys of limited lengths with a probability strictly <1. This study will give some insights for detailed future works on this quantum communication protocol.

Physical-Layer Security of a Binary Data Sequence Transmitted With Bessel–Gaussian Beams Over an Optical Wiretap Channel

When an eavesdropper performs an optical beam-splitting attack in a free-space optical communications channel, it is referred to as an optical wiretap channel, which is an extension of Wyner's wiretap channel model. Even though physical-layer security can be compromised, it is possible to exploit the noisy and degraded channel conditions experienced by the eavesdropper to obtain positive secrecy capacity even when a shared secret key is not used. In our previous work, we found that employing Bessel–Gaussian beams can help to improve physical-layer security and provide higher secrecy capacity over that of Laguerre–Gaussian beams in a turbulent free-space optical communications channel. In this companion paper, we conducted an experiment exclusively with Bessel–Gaussian beams onto which we encoded a pseudorandom binary sequence to emulate data transmission over this optical wiretap channel. Bit-error rate curves for the intended receiver and the eavesdropper were calculated from which estimates of secrecy capacity were derived. We found that the bit-error rate curves for the eavesdropper were consistently worse than those of the intended receiver under several turbulence conditions and that further evidence of an error floor even when the eavesdropper uses an optical amplifier is promising for secure communications.

Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement Based on Three-Photon Entanglement with Unidirectional Qubit Transmission

A multiparty quantum key agreement protocol based on three-photon entangled states is proposed. In this scheme, the quantum channel between all parties is that of a closed loop, in which the qubit transmission is one-way. Each party can obtain the sum of the other parties’ secret key values through the coding rules instead of extracting their private keys. The shared secret key cannot be determined by any subset of all the participants except the universal set and each party makes an equal contribution to the final key. Moreover, the security analysis shows our protocol can resist both outside attacks and inside attacks.

Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement Protocol with Entanglement Swapping

Secure and fair multiparty quantum key agreement protocols demand all participants influence and negotiate the shared secret key with equal right and nobody can determine the shared secret key only by himself. To ensure the security and high efficiency, a novel multiparty quantum key agreement protocol based on entanglement swapping between Bell states and G-like states is proposed. This protocol makes full use of Bell states and G-like states as quantum resources and utilizes Bell measurement, Z-basis measurement and unitary operations to generate the shared secret key. It demonstrates that this proposed multiparty quantum key agreement protocol is secure and fair, and simpler with higher efficiency than some other protocols, especially when the number of participants in the protocol is big enough. Furthermore, the proposed protocol can be implemented with existing physical technologies.

A Novel Multiserver Authentication Protocol with Multifactors for Cloud Service

Secure and efficient authentication protocols are necessary for cloud service. Multifactor authentication protocols taking advantage of smart card, user’s password, and biometric, are more secure than password-based single-factor authentication protocols which are widely used in practice. However, most of the multiserver authentication protocols may have weak points, such as smart card loss attack, man-in-the-middle attack, anonymity, and high computation cost of authentication center. In order to overcome the above weaknesses, we propose a novel multiserver multifactor authentication protocol based on the Kerberos protocol using the extended Chebyshev chaotic mapping as a cryptographic algorithm. The proposed protocol achieves anonymity without sharing secret keys in advance and needs the user to register with the authentication center only once. Finally, we prove the security of the new protocol with BAN logic and compare it with other multifactor authentication protocols for multiserver environment. The results show that our proposed protocol is more secure and efficient and better for practical application.

High-efficiency quantum key distribution without key sifting

In traditional quantum key distribution protocol, both communication parties need to reconciliate their encoding basis to realize sharing secret keys. However, the process of basis reconciliation decreases the generation efficiency of the secret key and classical information is needed to be transmitted for every raw key. Based on quantum interference, we propose a high-efficiency quantum key distribution protocol without basis reconciliation. The presented protocol can greatly improve the generating efficiency of secret keys, reaching 100% in the ideal case, and no classical information is needed. We also analyze the security of the protocol in detail, which shows that the protocol is robust against common attack strategies. Furthermore, the protocol can be implemented with current technologies and open promising possibilities for quantum cryptography.