Virtual private key generator based escrow‐free certificateless public key cryptosystem for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

A certificateless public key cryptosystem can make a special contribution to building key distribution and management architecture in resource‐constrained mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) because it has no separate certificate and no complex certificate management problems. In this paper, we present a virtual private key generator (VPKG)‐based escrow‐free certificateless public key cryptosystem as a novel combination of certificateless and threshold cryptography. Using secret sharing, we build a VPKG whose members collaboratively calculate the partial private key and send it to the user via public channels. The private key of a user is generated jointly by the VPKG and the user. Each of them has “half” of the secret information about the private key of the user. In addition, binding a user's public key with its identity and partial private key, respectively, raises our schemes to the same trust level as is enjoyed in a traditional public key infrastructure. We also show that the proposed scheme is secure against public key replacement attacks and passive attacks. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key Management for Beyond 5G Mobile Small Cells: A Survey

“…An adversary could still replace un-authenticated public keys to perform a denialof-decryption attack. This attack wastes network resources and [187], [188] proposed to bind the public key of a node to its identity and their ID-based private key to counter this. Furthermore, shares of ID-based private keys are claimed to be distributable over public channels since eavesdroppers would not learn anything from the node's combined private key [187], [188].…”

“…This attack wastes network resources and [187], [188] proposed to bind the public key of a node to its identity and their ID-based private key to counter this. Furthermore, shares of ID-based private keys are claimed to be distributable over public channels since eavesdroppers would not learn anything from the node's combined private key [187], [188]. However, security can be broken when an eavesdropper learns about the ID-based private key and successfully performs a key replacement attack on the same node's public key.…”

“…In each of these schemes the public key of the other node is requested and verified as a valid public key. However, the public keys do not seem to be bound to the node's identity and these schemes may therefore be vulnerable to a key replacement attack [188] which disrupts communication and wastes network resources.…”

A Survey on Key Management of Identity-based Schemes in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

“…Al-Riyam and Paterson [27] first proposed a certificateless public key cryptography (CL-PKC) that combines the advantages of IBC and PKI and overcomes the key escrow limitation of IBC. We will study on some certificateless schemes for MANETs [28], [29], [30] because certificateless-based schemes enjoy a number of features of IBC, though they are not purely identity-based.…”

“…CL-PKC enjoys a number of features of IBC while without having the problem of key escrow. LV et al [28], [29] present a virtual private key generator (VPKG)based escrow-free certificateless public key cryptosystem for MANETs as a novel combination of certificateless and threshold cryptography. In their schemes, VPKGs collaboratively calculate the partial private key and send it to the node via public channel.…”