Abstract

In a key management scheme for hierarchy based access control, each security class having higher clearance can derive the cryptographic secret keys of its other security classes having lower clearances. In 2008, Chung et al. proposed an efficient scheme on access control in user hierarchy based on elliptic curve cryptosystem [Information Sciences 178 (1) (2008) 230–243]. Their scheme provides solution of key management efficiently for dynamic access problems. However, in this paper, we propose an attack on Chung et al.’s scheme to show that Chung et al.’s scheme is insecure against the exterior root finding attack. We show that under this attack, an attacker (adversary) who is not a user in any security class in a user hierarchy attempts to derive the secret key of a security class by using the root finding algorithm. In order to remedy this attack, we further propose a simple improvement on Chung et al.’s scheme. Overall, the main theme of this paper is very simple: a security flaw is presented on Chung et al.’s scheme and then a fix is provided in order to remedy the security flaw found in Chung et al.’s scheme.

Abstract

Establishment of pairwise keys between sensor nodes in a sensor network is a difficult problem due to resource limitations of sensor nodes as well as vulnerability to physical captures of sensor nodes by the enemy. Public-key cryptosystems are not much suited for most resource-constrained sensor networks. Recently, elliptic curve cryptographic techniques show that public key cryptosystem is also feasible for resource-constrained sensor networks. However, most researchers accept that the symmetric key cryptosystems are viable options for resource-constrained sensor networks. In this paper, we first develop a basic principle to address the key pre-distribution problem in mobile sensor networks. Then, using this developed basic principle, we propose a scheme which takes the advantage of the post-deployment knowledge. Our scheme is a modified version of the key prioritization technique proposed by Liu and Ning. Our improved scheme provides reasonable network connectivity and security. Moreover, the proposed scheme works for any deployment topology.

Abstract

The author first reviews the recently proposed Li-Hwang's biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards; then shows that the Li-Hwang's scheme has some design flaws in their scheme. In order to withstand those flaws in their scheme, an improvement of their scheme is further proposed. The author also shows that the improved scheme provides strong authentication with the use of verifying biometric, password as well as random nonces generated by the user and the server as compared to that for the Li-Hwang's scheme and other related schemes.