An Efficient Key Management Technique for the Internet of Things
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Related Works
2.1. Mutual Key Management Technique
2.2. Group Key Management Technique
2.3. XOR Based Key Management
2.4. ECC/ECDH Based Key Management
2.5. CA-Less Key Management
3. Proposed Method
3.1. Proposed Key Management Process
3.1.1. Key Sharing Process
3.1.2. Key-Table Structure
- Connection table (): This table contains a single entry for each pair of linked nodes. The row is node N and key K. It should be remembered here that and carry the same key as the two-directional links. With respect to , and are called the outgoing and incoming connection respectively.
- Global key table (): This table allocates one entry for each key K. Each entry has two parts: the key K, and this key’s value v. The name of this table is global because the table contains the information that is used by the external nodes. is needed because if an origin node tries to send a message to a destination that has not previously been recorded, communication will be defined by means of the global key table.
- Local key table (): This table contains one single entry created by another node for each local key K. The name of this table is local because only the current node uses this table information, and no information goes outside of this table from the current node. All the incoming connections are stored in this table. As the source node has no incoming connection, it does not require any local table. It has only two tables: the connection table and the global table. Similarly, the destination node has no outgoing connection, so it does not require any global key table.
3.1.3. Direct Message Transfer
- When exists in then exists in as well, this means that the relation is two-way. If any bidirectional connection exists, this is represented by . If there is , the key setup is ready to send the message.
- If exists but does not exist, A may use the correct global key to send a message to B. When B receives K from A, it looks up for the reverse connection in its connection table. If no connection exists, it needs to add values to its local and connection table.
- If does not exist, then A needs to generate a new key K and finally needs to store in its global table . After adding the entry to its global key A, it also adds to its connection table . Lastly A calculates the value and send the pair to node B. If B collects , it then saves it for in its local table. Through submitting a constructive return message from B to A, the key setup will be closed. Eventually, the key configuration is completed, so A may send a message to B by using K to encrypt the control part of the message when B decrypts the message.
- If B is the destination node, then it also decrypts the data part of the message by using its private key. In this way, the data part is protected using the public-key encryption system, and the control part is protected by using the symmetric key encryption system.
3.1.4. Message Transfer Via Intermediate Nodes
- In this scenario node A sends a message m through an intermediate node N to end node B. So for bidirectional connections between A and N, A and N have and respectively. Similarly, for bidirectional connections between N and B, N and B provide and .
- A uses the link to send a message to N, and N uses the link to send a message to B.
- Now, if A wants to send a message to B, it will first pair with A and N with the same mechanism we talked about in the case of a direct link. When the message is received by N, it combines with B to send the message in the same manner to B. Eventually, the secure communication network is enabled.
3.2. Key Generation and Distribution Process
Algorithm 1:(A, B, m) |
3.2.1. Space Complexity
Algorithm 2:(A, B, m, K) |
Input: Sender node A, receiver node B, message m and mutual key K |
Output: True if the message sending operation completed successfully, otherwise return false |
/* perform encryption operation */ |
extract control part from m and encrypt the control part using K; Finally merge the encrypted control part with the message m |
/* Node A transmits the encrypted message to node B, where B receives it and decrypts the control part */ |
/* If B receives the message successfully then return a positive acknoledgment |
*/ |
return |
3.2.2. Time Complexity
3.3. Key Update Process
- Node A wants to change all its keys or a specific key. In the first stage, A checks for for all key entries, then submit message change commands to all link nodes with A that share the same key.
- Now say B gets a A change message. Using the hash key k and the value v that it previously stored in and tables, verifies this change message to ensure security. So B authenticates v with k. If no match is found, the key change request will be discarded by B. If found, then B updates its key entry in all associated tables.
3.4. Secure Authentication
3.5. Robustness in Case of Malicious Attacks
4. Implementation
4.1. The Design of IoT Simulator
4.2. Prototype System
5. Experimental Results
5.1. Smart Home Scenario
5.2. Performance
5.3. Effect on Different Key Conversion Function
5.4. Key Generation and Distribution Time
5.5. Service Response Analysis
5.6. Prevention of Attacks
- Man-in-the middle attack (MITM): In MITM, an adversary impersonates a valid device. It then transmits reply messages to authenticated servers. In our case, this will happen if any malicious node is added to our network and receives messages from the source. If this happens, the malicious node can not decrypt the messages because the malicious node needs to know the private receiver key, which is not possible without the full control of the receiver node. If the receiver node is hacked, only the messages that are received by the receiver will be compromised, and there will be no effect on other messages that are received by other receivers.
- Passive attacks: This type of attack highlights unauthorized listening to the routing packets or silently refusing execution of the requested function. It might be an attempt by the attacker to extrapolate data about the positions of each node with respect to the others. Such an attack is usually impossible to detect, since the attacker only attempts to discover valuable information by listening to the routed traffic instead of disrupting the operation of a routing mechanism. In our key management approach, it is not possible to listen to the routing information as for every message transfer the source node encrypts the control information (containing the routing information) by using the shared key between the source and destination. One of the forms of passive attack is eavesdropping, in which case the eavesdropped message are easily detected by the receiver and are discarded as our communication channel is fully protected using the mutual key.
- Target-oriented attack: The traffic analysis based on the identity of a peer we are interested in is usually passive. After performing traffic analysis, an adversary can set a target peer and conduct an intensive attack against the peer. As an example, sending too much unwanted traffic to a specific peer to overwhelm communication and make the peer inactive in the network. A specific jamming signal can be set up for that specific peer to make the peer inactive in the network for the case of communication. We call such an attack target-oriented. Such attacks are often active. In our approach, this kind of attack is not possible as the destination node discards all incoming message from a source node if the mutual key is not matched. The process of how our algorithm discards any unauthorized sender is described in details in Section 3.5.
- Masquerade attack: In this attack, a malicious peer may pretend to be a valid target of a source by stealing the identity of the real target. Thus, a malicious peer may gain access to the data of the source. The easiest point of an entry for a masquerade peer is provided by a weak authentication between the source and the target. Once the malicious node passes the authentication process, it may be authorized by the source as a target to access its data. Similarly, a malicious node may falsely act as a source for a target. Therefore, a malicious node may be able to tamper with both exchanged data and the data exchange policy between a source and a target. In this attack, an attacker may drop, modify, or even forge the exchanged data to interrupt the data exchange between a source and a target. In our proposed method masquerade attack is not possible as if by any chance a malicious peer act as a valid target, the receiver node will discard the data as in our method for each pair of connection a different key is used. If it happens for the final destination node the destination node easily discards the malicious peer as the destination node easily detects it by decrypting the data part of the message by using its private key.
5.7. Performance Comparison with other Existing Works
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Reference | Key Type Using | Good for When Number of Messages Is | Complexity | Drawbacks |
---|---|---|---|---|
[12] | Mutual Key | low | simple | generates a session key for every session which degrade performance when message is high |
[8] | Mutual Key | medium | simple | generates a session key for new connection but security is not high |
[14] | Group Key | medium | simple | creating multicast group is time-consuming |
[9] | Group Key | medium | simple | creating multicast group in an intelligent way but still time-consuming when message number is high |
[16] | XOR Based | low | moderate | for high resource consumption this method is not suggested |
[17] | XOR Based | low | high | performance and scalability are affected for using a third party certificate provider |
[19] | ECC/ECDH | low | high | implicit IoT device certificates make the system slower |
[20] | ECC/ECDH | medium | moderate | uses complex certificate based approach |
[10] | ECC/ECDH | medium | high | uses complex certificate based approach |
[7] | CA-Less | low | high | It is difficult to manage the Certificate Authority (CA) placing it on a server |
[22] | CA-Less | high | high | the method is still in its preliminary stage and detailed investigation is needed for realistic use in various environments |
Component | Purpose |
---|---|
Arduino Uno | Running our SIoT algorithm |
ESP8266-01—Wifi Module | Connecting other node through WiFi |
Serial Enabled 16 × 2 LCD | Displaying the connection and pair status |
Logic Level Converter—Bi-Directional | Is used to coordinate voltage levels between 5 V controllers and 3.3 V components and vice versa |
Lithium Polymer Battery—7.4 V | Power source |
Jumper Wires Pack—M/M | Electrical circuits to connect its various components |
Jumper Wires Pack—M/F | A pack of 20 standard 6in female-male Jumper wires |
Step | From Connection | To Connection |
---|---|---|
1 | ArduinoUno Vin | LipoBattery7v4 VCC |
2 | ArduinoUno GND | Bus GND |
3 | ArduinoUno 5v | Bus POS |
4 | serLCD GND | Bus GND |
5 | serLCD RX | ArduinoUno 2 |
6 | serLCD VCC | Bus POS |
7 | ESP8266 RXD | LogicLevelConverter LV1 |
8 | ESP8266 TXD | LogicLevelConverter LV2 |
9 | ESP8266 VCC | LogicLevelConverter LV |
10 | ESP8266 GND | Bus GND |
11 | LogicLevelConverter LV | ESP8266 CH_PD |
12 | LogicLevelConverter LV | ArduinoUno 3.3 V |
13 | LogicLevelConverter GND | Bus GND |
14 | LogicLevelConverter HV2 | ArduinoUno 10 |
15 | LogicLevelConverter HV1 | ArduinoUno 11 |
16 | LogicLevelConverter HV | Bus POS |
17 | LipoBattery7v4 GND | Bus GND |
Factor | Proposed Technique | KMP [19,20] | GKMP [9] |
---|---|---|---|
Key assign | A symmetric key for each node pair | Two certificates for each node pair | Group key for each group |
Auth | Hash key | Two certificates | Digital signature |
Re-key | Need to update the GT and LT | No action required | Need to assign new to all members that are in a group |
Space | Moderately high | Low | Low |
Speed | High | Slow | Slow |
Drawback | Moderately high space required for storing data in GT and LT | Using same implicit key, so if the key is compromised, the communication may break down | Practically it is almost impossible to make grouping of nodes |
Attack resistance | Man-in-the-middle attack, Eavesdropping | Reply-attack | Man-in-the-middle attack |
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Tabassum, T.; Hossain, S.A.; Rahman, M.A.; Alhamid, M.F.; Hossain, M.A. An Efficient Key Management Technique for the Internet of Things. Sensors 2020, 20, 2049. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20072049
Tabassum T, Hossain SA, Rahman MA, Alhamid MF, Hossain MA. An Efficient Key Management Technique for the Internet of Things. Sensors. 2020; 20(7):2049. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20072049
Chicago/Turabian StyleTabassum, Tamanna, SK Alamgir Hossain, Md. Anisur Rahman, Mohammed F. Alhamid, and M. Anwar Hossain. 2020. "An Efficient Key Management Technique for the Internet of Things" Sensors 20, no. 7: 2049. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20072049