A lightweight anonymous user authentication and key establishment scheme for wearable devices

Abstract

The paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interconnected objects that can be accessed globally with the help of the Internet. IoT has numerous applications including healthcare wherein the wearable devices can sense the data from the body of the patient and sent it to the concerned doctor for remote monitoring. It is essential that these devices should operate in real time and generate the precise data as life-critical decisions are made based upon the data received from these devices. The infrastructure of IoT is very heterogeneous and dynamic therefore vulnerable to the threat of security and privacy. One of the most significant challenges in IoT is the authentication of the devices before sending the data so that we can have confidence in the received data. As IoT devices are resource constraint, there is a need for lightweight authentication scheme for them. In this paper, we introduce a new authentication technique for communication on the Internet of Things (IoT) using simple XOR and one-way Cryptographic hash function. The proposed protocol not only provides security but also maintains equilibrium between the efficiency and communication cost. The security of the proposed protocol is evaluated using BAN-Logic, the widely accepted AVISPA tool and the informal security analysis. Then, the comparison of the proposed protocol with the existing related schemes is shown concerning security features, communication, and computational cost. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.