Shared Secret Key Research Articles

Comment on “A novel quantum deniable authentication protocol without entanglement”

Shi et al. (Quantum Inf Process 14(6):2183–2193, 2015) proposed a novel quantum deniable authentication protocol in which new shared secret keys can be updated timely with the help of a trusted party, and the fact that only the specified receiver could identify the true source of a given message is guaranteed by the new shared secret keys generated in the key update phase. Hence, the core of Shi et al.’s protocol is the key update phase . However, the analysis in this paper shows that there is a bug in the key update phase, which can lead to the failure of updating the shared key. Furthermore, an improved simple method is proposed to mitigate the security weakness.

Cryptographic Side-Channel Signaling and Authentication via Fingerprint Embedding

Authentication via fingerprint embedding at the physical layer utilizes noise in the wireless channel to attain a certain degree of information theoretic security that traditional HMAC methods cannot provide. Fingerprint embedding refers to a key-aided process of superimposing a low-power tag to the primary message waveform for the purpose of authenticating the transmission. The tag is uniquely created from the message and key and successful authentication is achieved when the correct tag is detected by the receiver. This paper generalizes a framework for embedding physical layer fingerprints to create an authenticated side-channel for minimal cost. Side-channel information is conveyed to the receiver through the transmitter's choice of tag from a secret codebook generated by the primary message and a shared secret key. In addition, a new linear coding scheme is introduced which enhances the ability to trade off the performance goals of authentication, side-channel rate, secrecy, and privacy.

Three-Party Quantum Key Agreement Protocol with Seven-Qubit Entangled States

A new three-party quantum key agreement protocol based on seven-qubit states is proposed. In this protocol, each participant adopts different encryption methods to transmit a secret key of the same length. Subsequently, the participants utilize joint measurement to gain the ultimate shared secret key. No participant can determine the ultimate shared key by himself/herself. In addition, the proposed three-party quantum key agreement protocol could resist several well-known attacks. Compared with typical quantum key agreement protocols, our proposed three-party quantum key agreement protocol is more efficient.

A dynamic multiple-keys game-based industrial wireless sensor-cloud authentication scheme

Industrial wireless sensor clouds (IWSCs) are indispensable in industrial applications and can operate in tough industrial environments by using industrial wireless sensor nodes to perceive and control devices. Because wireless sensor nodes are often deployed in unattended, remote-controlled environments, attackers may impersonate legal nodes to change device parameters. Such unexpected events could lead to disastrous consequences. It is difficult for an intrusion detection system to detect such attacks. Therefore, an authentication scheme becomes one of an effective approaches to ensuring security. However, authentication schemes for industrial wireless sensor clouds have not yet been adequately studied. The current approach is only applicable to an authentication scheme based on the shared secret key of the wireless sensor cloud and cannot be applied to a dynamic multiple-keys authentication scheme. Based on this scheme, this paper studies a game-based dynamic multiple-keys authentication scheme. Based on the probability of interception of the key and the leak probability of devices’s operating authorization, the paper sets up an authentication framework for a dynamic multiple-keys game. It also derives the optimal strategy which game players can use to maximize security utility and analyze the evolution process of the trust in the dynamic multiple-keys game. The experimental results show that this approach can successfully improve the security of IWSC.

Improving secret key generation for wireless communications in FDD mode

SummaryMost recent research on channel‐based key generation oriented to time division duplex system because the channel reciprocity feature is applied directly for secret key generation. Most of commercial cellular systems depend on frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. In this paper, we investigate the impact of uplink and downlink of FDD systems for the generation of shared secret keys between two parties in the presents of passive eavesdropper. In addition, we are considering improving the rate of the secret key for wireless communication in FDD mode. The main idea is to use the fading coefficient of the channels between the relay and other parties as an additional random common source for the secret key generation. Also, explore the using of channel estimation techniques to reduce the channel training sequence and study its effect on the generation of shared key for wireless communications in FDD mode. We derive the upper bound of the generated shared key rate for four scenarios and give numerical examples to reveal the performance of our suggested improvement approaches.

Quantum key distribution with an efficient countermeasure against correlated intensity fluctuations in optical pulses

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two distant parties to share secret keys with the proven security even in the presence of an eavesdropper with unbounded computational power. Recently, GHz-clock decoy QKD systems have been realized by employing ultrafast optical communication devices. However, security loopholes of high-speed systems have not been fully explored yet. Here we point out a security loophole at the transmitter of the GHz-clock QKD, which is a common problem in high-speed QKD systems using practical band-width limited devices. We experimentally observe the inter-pulse intensity correlation and modulation pattern-dependent intensity deviation in a practical high-speed QKD system. Such correlation violates the assumption of most security theories. We also provide its countermeasure which does not require significant changes of hardware and can generate keys secure over 100 km fiber transmission. Our countermeasure is simple, effective and applicable to wide range of high-speed QKD systems, and thus paves the way to realize ultrafast and security-certified commercial QKD systems.

Deterministic En-Route Filtering of False Reports: A Combinatorial Design Based Approach

Wireless sensor networks are an easy target for report fabrication attack, where compromised sensor nodes can be used by an adversary to flood the network with bogus/false reports. En-route filtering is a mechanism where intermediate forwarding nodes identify and drop false reports while they are being forwarded toward the sink. Most of the existing en-route filtering schemes are probabilistic, where sensor nodes in each cell share secret keys with a fixed probability with intermediate nodes. Thus, forwarded reports are verified probabilistically by intermediate nodes, because of which false reports can travel several hops before being dropped. Few deterministic en-route filtering schemes have also been proposed in the literature, but all such schemes require a source to send the reports through a fixed path to reach the sink. In this paper, we propose a novel deterministic en-route filtering scheme based on a combinatorial design to overcome the above-mentioned limitations of the existing schemes. The use of combinatorial design-based keys ensures direct communication between all the sensor nodes while maintaining low key storage overhead in the network. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme notably performs better than the existing schemes in terms of the expected filtering position of false reports. Furthermore, the proposed scheme improves data authenticity in the network and is more buoyant to selective forwarding and report disruption attacks.

An Enhanced Privacy-Preserving Authentication Scheme for Vehicle Sensor Networks.

Vehicle sensor networks (VSNs) are ushering in a promising future by enabling more intelligent transportation systems and providing a more efficient driving experience. However, because of their inherent openness, VSNs are subject to a large number of potential security threats. Although various authentication schemes have been proposed for addressing security problems, they are not suitable for VSN applications because of their high computation and communication costs. Chuang and Lee have developed a trust-extended authentication mechanism (TEAM) for vehicle-to-vehicle communication using a transitive trust relationship, which they claim can resist various attacks. However, it fails to counter internal attacks because of the utilization of a shared secret key. In this paper, to eliminate the vulnerability of TEAM, an enhanced privacy-preserving authentication scheme for VSNs is constructed. The security of our proposed scheme is proven under the random oracle model based on the assumption of the computational Diffie–Hellman problem.

Efficient key generation leveraging wireless channel reciprocity for MANETs

Wireless channel reciprocity ensures that transceivers can generate the shared secret key from their communicating channels. However, various interferences in real environments make channel measurement sequences of different transceivers are highly correlated accompanying with many discrepancies. Then, if these measurements are directly quantified (and encoded) to bit sequences, the bit mismatch rate might be extremely high. Consequently, the efficiency and security of key generation might be reduced since some information might be leaked during key agreement. In this paper, an efficient key generation scheme is proposed, which is available to generate the shared secret key for transceivers even facing the referred challenge. During key generation, curve fitting is implemented to pre-process measurements so that the reciprocity of outputs of curve fitting processes are better than original channel measurements. Then, the bit mismatch rate can be greatly reduced when these outputs are used to generate bit sequences. To extract the shared bit sequence, the interactive Cascade is implemented during information reconciliation. Finally, 2-universal hash functions are used to achieve privacy amplification so that the leaked information can be eliminated and randomness of the shared key can be guaranteed. Several experiments in real mobile scenarios are conducted to evaluate the proposed scheme, where the received signal strength measurements are derived from heterogeneous devices. The results show that the implementation of pre-processing can effectively reduce the bit mismatch rate and the proposed scheme can efficiently generate shared secret keys for transceivers in real environments.

Perfectly Secure Index Coding

In this paper, we investigate the index coding problem in the presence of an eavesdropper. Messages are to be sent from one transmitter to a number of legitimate receivers who have side information about the messages, and share a set of secret keys with the transmitter. To do this, the transmitter communicates to the legitimate receivers the public code $C$ , which is also heard by the eavesdropper. We assume perfect secrecy, meaning that the eavesdropper should not be able to retrieve any information about the message set from the public communication. We study the minimum key lengths for zero-error and perfectly secure index coding problem. On one hand, this problem is a generalization of the index coding problem (and thus a difficult one). On the other hand, it is a generalization of the Shannon’s cipher system. We show that a generalization of Shannon’s one-time pad strategy is optimal up to a multiplicative constant, meaning that it obtains the entire boundary of the cone formed by looking at the secure rate region from the origin. This shows the optimality of the generalized one-time pad for minimizing the consumption of shared secret keys per message bits, when public communication is free (the transmitter is not charged for the rate of the public communication). Finally, we consider relaxation of the perfect secrecy and zero-error constraints to weak secrecy and asymptotically vanishing probability of error, and provide a secure version of the result, obtained by Langberg and Effros, on the equivalence of zero-error and $\epsilon $ -error regions in the conventional index coding problem.

On the using of discrete wavelet transform for physical layer key generation

For key generation between wireless transceivers, key generation leveraging channel reciprocity is a promising alternative to public key cryptography. Several existing schemes have validated its feasibility in real environments. However, in some scenarios, channel measurements collected by the involved transceivers are highly correlated but not identical, i.e., measurement sequences of these transceivers have too many discrepancies, which makes it difficult to extract the shared key from these measurements. In this paper, we propose a scheme to achieve secret key generation from wireless channels. During the proposed scheme, to reduce the amount of the referred discrepancies and further achieve efficient key generation, the involved transceivers separately apply a compressor based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to pre-process their measurements. Then, multi-level quantization is implemented to quantify the output of DWT-based compressor. An encoding scheme based on gray code is employed to establish bit sequence and ensure that the resulting bit mismatch rate can be further reduced so that efficient information reconciliation can be implemented. Accordingly, the shared key between these transceivers can be derived after information reconciliation. Finally, 2-universal hash functions are used to guarantee the randomness of the shared secret key. Several experiments in real environments are conducted to validate the proposed scheme. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is available to generate shared secret keys between transceivers even though their measurement sequences have too many discrepancies.

Efficient key generation leveraging wireless channel reciprocity and discrete cosine transform

Key generation is essential for protecting wireless networks. Based on wireless channel reciprocity, transceivers can generate shared secret keys by measuring their communicating channels. However, due to non-simultaneous measurements, asymmetric noises and other interferences, channel measurements collected by different transceivers are highly correlated but not identical and thus might have some discrepancies. Further, these discrepancies might lead to mismatches of bit sequences after quantization. The referred mismatches significantly affect the efficiency of key generation. In this paper, an efficient key generation scheme leveraging wireless channel reciprocity is proposed. To reduce the bit mismatch rate and enhance the efficiency of key generation, the involved transceivers separately apply discrete cosine transform (DCT) and inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) to pre-process their measurements. Then, the outputs of IDCT are quantified and encoded to establish the bit sequence. With the implementations of information reconciliation and privacy amplification, the shared secret key can be generated. Several experiments in real environments are conducted to evaluate the proposed scheme. During each experiment, the shared key is established from the received signal strength (RSS) of heterogeneous devices. The results of experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme can efficiently generate shared secret keys between transceivers.

Design and analysis of pairing protocol for bluetooth enabled devices using R-LWE Lattice-based cryptography

Secure Simple Pairing protocol of Bluetooth introduced in Bluetooth version 2.1+EDR has security issues. Shared secret key using Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman algorithm generated in public key exchange phase, is subsequently used for authentication of devices and for computing Link key. The stability of Elliptic-Curve-Diffie–Hellman is based on the determination of order and structure of a finite Abelian group and computation of Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm (ECDLP) in a cyclic group. An algorithm for a quantum computers exists, that can figure out the inverse of Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm in polynomial time. Therefore, it demands a safe and sound cryptosystem for quantum computers. A revision to boost the security of pairing and authentication process in the Secure Simple Pairing (SSP) protocol of Bluetooth intended for classical and quantum computers is proposed called as Classiquantum Resistance Secure Simple Pairing protocol. On simulating the proposed protocol, it is studied that the proposed protocol is superior over SSP, as far as security performance by enhancement of key strength and by wrapping link key with two R-LWE secret key, is concerned.

Vector Quantization and Clustered Key Mapping for Channel-Based Secret Key Generation

This paper proposes a vector-quantization-based secret key generation (SKG) procedure to efficiently extract shared secret keys from correlated channel observations at two communicating terminals, Alice and Bob. Most existing SKG schemes utilize scalar quantization to extract secret key bits separately from each individual channel observation. This approach is simple to implement but yields higher key disagreement probability (or lower key entropy) compared with vector-quantization-based approaches. However, regardless of the quantizer design, quantization for SKG often suffers from the so-called cell-boundary problem, which occurs when the channel observations at Alice and Bob lie close to the quantization cell boundaries, resulting in high probability of key disagreement. In this paper, a general SKG procedure that utilizes sample and quantizer selection techniques to avoid this problem is first proposed. The vector quantizer adopted in the above procedure is designed by minimizing the quadratic distortion between the true channel vector and the noisy observation at Alice (or Bob). Then, by considering the case where the eavesdropper (Eve) may observe a channel vector that is correlated with that observed by Alice and Bob, a clustered key mapping scheme that assigns each secret key to multiple quantization cells in different clusters is also proposed to induce additional randomness at Eve and, thus, maintain high conditional key entropy. The effectiveness of the proposed schemes is demonstrated through computer simulations.

Deterministic secure quantum communication using a single d-level system

Deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) can transmit secret messages between two parties without first generating a shared secret key. Compared with quantum key distribution (QKD), DSQC avoids the waste of qubits arising from basis reconciliation and thus reaches higher efficiency. In this paper, based on data block transmission and order rearrangement technologies, we propose a DSQC protocol. It utilizes a set of single d-level systems as message carriers, which are used to directly encode the secret message in one communication process. Theoretical analysis shows that these employed technologies guarantee the security, and the use of a higher dimensional quantum system makes our protocol achieve higher security and efficiency. Since only quantum memory is required for implementation, our protocol is feasible with current technologies. Furthermore, Trojan horse attack (THA) is taken into account in our protocol. We give a THA model and show that THA significantly increases the multi-photon rate and can thus be detected.

Semiquantum secure direct communication using EPR pairs

Quantum secure direct communication can transmit a secret message directly through quantum channels without first generating a shared secret key. In the most of the existing protocols, quantum secure direct communication is possible only when both communicating participants have quantum capabilities. So what happens if either party of two participants just has classical capabilities? In this paper, we propose a semiquantum secure direct communication protocol with Einstein---Podolsky---Rosen photon pairs in which the classical sender Bob transmits a secret message to quantum Alice directly. After checking the security of quantum channels, Bob encodes his secret message on Alice's code sequence. Then, quantum Alice extracts Bob's secret message by measuring her home qubits and the received code qubits, respectively. In addition, we demonstrate the security of the proposed protocol against some individual eavesdropping attacks. The efficiency analysis shows that our protocol can provide higher efficiency.

Exploiting the Randomness Inherent of the Channel for Secret Key Sharing in Vehicular Communications

Vehicular Ad Hoc networks (VANETs) have been employed in supporting several applications related to safety and comfort. VANET applications have strict security requirements, as they have direct impact on people comfort and safety. Although many ordinary networks security systems can be applied to provide security services in VANET, the key establishment between legitimate vehicles is the common challenge among all of these systems. This paper proposes a secret key establishment technique for vehicular communications exploiting the special properties and randomness inherent of the wireless channel. Our comprehensive simulations show that the proposed key extraction technique suits VANETs rather than other communication systems, owing to the multi environments operation of VANET which causes more randomness due to fading, noise multipath and velocity variation. The proposed approach can be tuned to extract low or high rate secret key with high entropy rate and less information exchange between legitimate vehicles. The extracted secret key can be employed to support providing security services in VANET.

Dual image based reversible data hiding scheme using (7,4) hamming code

In this paper, we propose a new dual-image based reversible data hiding scheme through (7,4) Hamming code (RDHHC) using shared secret key. A block of seven pixels are collected from cover image and copied into two arrays then it is adjusted redundant Least Significant Bits (LSBs) using odd parity such that any error creation is encountered at the sender end and recovered at the receiver end. Before data embedding, we first complement the bit at shared secret position. After that, secret message bit is embedded by error creation caused by tamper in any suitable position except secret position and that error is detected as well as corrected at the receiver end using Hamming error correcting code. One shared secret position κ and one shared secret key ξ help to perform data embedding, data extraction and recovery of the original image. The secret data and original cover image are successfully recovered at the receiver end from dual stego image. Finally, we compare our scheme with other state-of-the-art methods and obtain reasonably better performance in terms of PSNR.

Provably Secure and Efficient Authentication Protocol for Roaming Service in Global Mobility Networks

In global mobility networks, a mobile user can access roaming services using a mobile device at anytime and anywhere. However, mobile users can be vulnerable to various attacks by adversaries, because the roaming services are provided through public network. Therefore, an anonymous mobile user authentication for roaming services is an essential security issue in global mobility networks. Recently, Lee et al. pointed out the security weaknesses of a previous scheme and proposed an advanced secure anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services in global mobility networks. However, we found that the scheme proposed by Lee et al. is vulnerable to password guessing and user impersonation attacks, and that it cannot provide perfect forward secrecy and secure password altered phase. In this paper, to overcome the security weaknesses of the scheme proposed by Lee et al., we propose an improved secure anonymous authentication scheme using shared secret keys between home agent and foreign agent. In addition, we analyze the security of our proposed scheme against various attacks and prove that it provides secure mutual authentication using Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic. In addition, the formal security analysis using the broadly-accepted real-or-random (ROR) random oracle model and the formal security verification using the widely accepted automated validation of the Internet security protocols and applications tool show that the proposed scheme provides the session key security and protection against replay as well as man-in-the-middle attacks, respectively. Finally, we compare the performance of the proposed scheme with the related schemes, and the results show that the proposed scheme provides better security and comparable efficiency as compared with those for the existing schemes.

A Shared Secret Key Initiated by EPR Authentication and Qubit Transmission Channels

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an innovative solution in the cryptography world to prevent the information leakage that can sometimes be deliberate. Several QKD protocols were recently presented for building a secure shared key, of which the BB84 protocol is one of those interesting protocols. The authentication between the communicating parties is one of the issues that cause a huge argument. Furthermore, the current well-known QKD protocols are not yet ready to realize the personality of either the sender or the receiver, although the QKD protocol is already protected by the rules of physics and quantum mechanics to detect any interruption. This paper introduces a new QKD protocol that utilizes two quantum channels to provide authenticated communications for legitimate parties. Moreover, the proposed QKD protocol uses two type of physical behaviors, entanglement and superposition states. The entangled states are utilized to confirm the authentication between the end users, while the superposition states carry the secret key that will be shared between the users.