Authentication and key agreement based on three factors and PUF for UAVs-assisted post-disaster emergency communication

Abstract

For unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-assisted post-disaster emergency communication networks, UAVs serve as relay nodes of air-based backup network to support transmission of rescue messages to emergency communication vehicles (ECVs), while ECVs provide on-site ground communication and connectivity to the command center (CC) of the rescue operation. Existing works seldom emphasize communication security such as authenticity of communicating parties and integrity of message content. In this connection, authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols are promising solutions for achieving communication security. However, the traditional approaches to endpoint security and entity authentication of principals may not be practical in emergency situations, in which network equipment and security modules are exposed to an open and untrusted physical environment. Besides, there is a lack of attention to the study of privacy impacts resulted from the physical loss of UAVs. More importantly, cyber attacks and excessive overhead may deteriorate AKA availability. Motivated by above challenges, we propose an AKA protocol, namely AKAEC, which is based on three-factor (i.e. smart card, biometrics, and password) and physically unclonable function (PUF) for protecting UAVs-assisted emergency communication. Specifically, AKAEC includes ECV-to-UAV (E2U) and UAV-to-UAV (U2U), where the former achieves secure emergency communication between ECV and UAV, while the latter realizes secure emergency communication between UAV and UAV. We then provide a formal security proof under the Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and formal security verification by AVISPA. This is followed by a security analysis to show that AKAEC meets the security goals defined for emergency situations. Finally, the performance of AKAEC is evaluated from communication overhead and computational overhead.