A Lightweight Three-Factor Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Homes

Abstract

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is used for a smart home system’s backbone that monitors home environment and controls smart home devices to manage lighting, heating, security and surveillance. However, despite its convenience and potential benefits, there are concerns about various security threats that may infringe on privacy and threaten our home life. For protecting WSNs for smart homes from those threats, authentication and key agreement are basic security requirements. There have been a large number of proposed authentication and key agreement scheme for WSNs. In 2017, Jung et al. proposed an efficient and security enhanced anonymous authentication with key agreement scheme by employing biometrics information as the third authentication factor. They claimed that their scheme resists on various security attacks and satisfies basic security requirements. However, we have discovered that Jung et al.’s scheme possesses some security weaknesses. Their scheme cannot guarantee security of the secret key of gateway node and security of session key and protection against user tracking attack, information leakage attack, and user impersonation attack. In this paper, we describe how those security weaknesses occur and propose a lightweight three-factor authentication and key agreement scheme in WSNs for smart homes, as an improved version of Jung et al.’s scheme. We then present a detailed analysis of the security and performance of the proposed scheme and compare the analysis results with other related schemes.

A Privacy-Preserving Authentication, Authorization, and Key Agreement Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks in 5G-Integrated Internet of Things

“…Since Das et al introduced a two-factor user authentication scheme for WSNs [2], a large number of two-factor user authentication schemes using passwords and smart cards have been proposed [3]- [8]. To address the security vulnerabilities associated with two-factor user authentication schemes and to improve their security strength, three-factor authentication, with biometrics as the third factor, has attracted attention from many researchers in recent years [9]- [16].…”

Special Issue “Internet of Things for Smart Homes”

“…In such circumstances, cryptographic methods should be employed to preserve user privacy and wireless devices against various attacks. The authors of [6] analyze the security vulnerabilities in modern three-factor authentication and key agreement schemes. They introduce a system model for smart homes based on wireless devices in which a secure and lightweight three-factor authentication and key agreement scheme are employed.…”

Robust three‐factor authentication protocol for satellite communication systems

“…After analyzing some existing three-factor authentication protocols, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] we find that the following problems still exist:…”

“…25 • The research on privacy protection is not enough. 17,18,24 It is necessary to consider the protection of biometric and user anonymity. If the designed protocol is to be recognized by users, the complete privacy protection is essential.…”

“…• Three-factor authentication protocols cannot be truly realized. 24 Adversary may still be authenticated with only two of the three factors, which greatly weakens the protocol's security. • The data in the smart card are not absolutely secure because they can be easily obtained by the side channel attack.…”