Secure device association for ad hoc and ubiquitous computing environments

Abstract

Secure Device Association (also known as security initialization, first-connect or simply pairing in the literature) can be referred as the process of establishing a secure channel between a pair of devices in close proximity. There have been many recent proposals to provide secure pairing of devices in close proximity. All vary in their security against different attacks, the needed hardware capabilities and the necessary level of user attention. In a world of heterogeneous devices and requirements, we need mechanisms to allow automated selection of the best device association protocols without requiring the user to have an in-depth knowledge of the minutiae of the underlying technologies. Further, these mechanisms should facilitate unobtrusive device identification, matching of pairing techniques to requirements, chains of communication to bridge between devices of different capability and improved security by combining techniques where possible. In this paper, we present research trends and issues in the area of secure device association for ad hoc and ubiquitous computing environments followed by a short survey of the existing methods.

A Generic Framework for Device Pairing in Ubiquitous Computing Environments

“…Each of the proposed schemes we have surveyed [43,44] has strengths and weaknesses -often in hardware requirements, strength against various attacks or usability in particular scenarios. Therefore, we can conclude that no one has yet devised a pairing protocol, which is generic enough to accommodate a very large set of device pairing scenarios and can be considered as a standard solution for ubiquitous computing environments.…”

“…The main goal of the research community working on the secure device pairing issue is to provide mechanisms that give assurance of the identity of the devices participating in the pairing process and to secure them from being victims of eavesdropping attacks, such as MiTM attack. Achieving this goal is a challenging problem from both the security and the usability points of view [43,44].…”

“…The proposed system integrates device discovery, several pairing schemes and a selection mechanism into a single model that facilitates association of any pair of devices in a wide range of scenarios by using the devices' existing capabilities and user preferences, and also assists the user to select an appropriate pairing protocols and relieves him/her from choosing between more than two dozen of pairing schemes. The interested readers can find the detailed analysis of these existing schemes in [43,44].…”

Secure Device Pairing: A Usability Study

“…The main goal of the research community working on the secure device pairing issue has been to provide mechanisms that give assurance of the identity of the devices participating in the pairing process and to secure them from being victims of eavesdropping attacks, such as MiTM attack. Achieving this goal is a challenging problem from both the security and the usability points of view [32][33]. Consequently, Malkani et.…”

“…The proposed system integrates device discovery, several pairing schemes and a protocol selection mechanism into a single model that facilitates association of any pair of devices in a wide range of scenarios by using the devices' existing capabilities and user preferences, and also assists the user to select an appropriate pairing protocol and relieves him/her from choosing between more than two dozen of pairing schemes. The interested readers can find the detailed analysis of these existing schemes in [32][33] and the detailed system architecture of the proposed system in [1]. The focus of this paper is the usability study of eight pairing schemes as well as the proposed system, which integrates them.…”