Lightweight Anonymous Authentication Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

There are many applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) we are using now a days and security in such networks is an important aspect; authentication is one among them.
In WSN, user authentication is a vital security issue due to their random and unattended organization in the field. Remote user authentication is a primary security concern because sensor nodes are equipped with communication modules, fixed memory and computing power. At present, there are many authentication protocols with user anonymity based on different cryptographic primitives, symmetric key decryption/encryption and hash functions. In this work, we have aimed a lightweight anonymous key based authentication protocol for wireless sensor networks that can resist various security attacks. The supremacy of the proposed approach is shown using crypt analysis, computational analysis and simulation analysis using Avispa tool. The cryptanalysis of the proposed scheme verifies that it fulfills the required security properties like untraceability, perfect forward secrecy, user anonymity,etc. The proposed approach is proven to be lightweight with respect to computational cost compared the existing protocols. Further, simulation results assert that our scheme is safe from various security attacks.