![](bg6.png)
function SHA-512 is used to generate the message
digest in our scheme. However, 160 bit SHA-1 hash
function can also be used to reduce the memory
requirement for gateway (GW) and sensor modules.
Figure 3: SystemC architecture of our protocol.
The authentication latency of our scheme is a
function of the number of users, encryption cipher
and channel transmission rate among the modules.
We executed the simulation 20 times and observed
that the average authentication latency of our
scheme is 0.29 seconds (for one user). The effect of
simultaneous multiple users’ login requests on
authentication latency is also being investigated.
Replay, node capture, gateway bypass and multiple
login attacks are further investigated by simulating
our authentication protocol. It is verified that the
protocol is resistant against all the above attacks that
re-affirms our claims of Section 3. The main focus
of our scheme is to provide application layer
security. However, the security can further be
enhanced by incorporating IEEE 802.15.4 (2003)
specification at MAC sub-layer for all the phases of
the proposed authentication protocol.
Finally, a memory requirement comparison is
made between the Vaidya et al.’s scheme (2009) and
our protocol. The user data storage requirements for
both schemes are presented in Table 3. The storage
requirement for sensor node in our scheme is
slightly higher than Vaidya et al.’s scheme (2009).
However, our protocol is resistant to replay as well
as gateway bypass attacks.
Table 3: Comparison of storage overhead.
Storage Overhead per User (bits)
UD GW SN
Vaidya et al.’s scheme (2009) 2304 1600 1056
The Proposed scheme 2304 1601 1088
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have proposed a robust user
authentication scheme, which is an improved
password-based authentication method. We have
identified that Vaidya et al.’s scheme is subject to
several security flaws (2009). To overcome these
flaws, we have proposed an improved scheme that
retains all the advantages of past user authentication
schemes. Our proposed scheme resists replay, GW
node bypass and many logged in user attacks. The
scheme provides mutual authentication and resists
replay attack inherently and does not require any
network synchronization. We have modeled our
protocol using SystemC and verified different attack
scenarios. In our scheme, we have assumed that the
database is securely stored in GW node and failing
to meet this condition may make our scheme
vulnerable to stolen verifier attack. Again none of
the past schemes provides an inherent method to
detect a compromised node.
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Gateway
Module
Sensor Module
Sensor Module
Sensor Module
User Module
Authentication Protocol
Specification
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