Cryptanalysis and Security Improvements of ‘Two-Factor User Authentication in Wireless Sensor Networks’

Sensors

Muhammad Khurram Khan¹ 

[1] Center of Excellence in Information Assurance (CoEIA), King Saud University, Saudi Arabia

关键词: authentication;    wireless sensor network;    security;    smart card;    cryptanalysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s100302450

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

User authentication in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is a critical security issue due to their unattended and hostile deployment in the field. Since sensor nodes are equipped with limited computing power, storage, and communication modules; authenticating remote users in such resource-constrained environments is a paramount security concern. Recently, M.L. Das proposed a two-factor user authentication scheme in WSNs and claimed that his scheme is secure against different kinds of attack. However, in this paper, we show that the M.L. Das-scheme has some critical security pitfalls and cannot be recommended for real applications. We point out that in his scheme: users cannot change/update their passwords, it does not provide mutual authentication between gateway node and sensor node, and is vulnerable to gateway node bypassing attack and privileged-insider attack. To overcome the inherent security weaknesses of the M.L. Das-scheme, we propose improvements and security patches that attempt to fix the susceptibilities of his scheme. The proposed security improvements can be incorporated in the M.L. Das-scheme for achieving a more secure and robust two-factor user authentication in WSNs.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.