Fog-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) systems have a lot of attention and are being applied in various fields, including smart homes, smart healthcare, smart factories, and smart grids. These fog-enabled IoT systems enhance citizens’ quality of life and provide innovative and high-quality IoT services. However, these systems can be vulnerable to cyber security attacks since an adversary attempts to modify, delete, block, and intercept the exchanged data over an insecure channel. Besides cyber security attacks, IoT can be fragile to physical security attacks because they are deployed in hostile environments. Physical unclonable function (PUF) is a promising solution to address these issues. PUF can protect the security of IoT devices with minimal computation costs against cyber/physical attacks from an adversary. However, with recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, existing PUFs used in authentication and key agreement (AKA) schemes are susceptible to machine-learning (ML)-based modeling attacks. To address these challenges, we design the ML-based modeling attack-resistant PUF-based robust and efficient AKA scheme in fog-enabled IoT environments. We evaluate the security of the proposed scheme by performing informal and formal security analyses, such as ROR oracle model and AVISPA simulation. We present the implementation to demonstrate the accuracy against ML-based modeling attacks. Moreover, we perform the performance comparison analysis between the proposed scheme and existing schemes based on testbed implementation. Consequently, the proposed scheme provides superior security and efficiency compared to existing schemes and can be suitable for practical fog-enabled IoT systems.

Sixth-generation (6G) services can offer unprecedented data speeds, ultra-low latency, and vast connectivity. Moreover, satellite communication has become crucial to achieving seamless global coverage for 6G networks. Space-terrestrial integrated networks (STIN) combine satellite and ground networks, ensuring continuous services via satellites even when outside terrestrial network coverage. However, existing STIN schemes rely on central ground server, which can potentially lead to bottlenecks and delays. Additionally, a lightweight handover is necessary to address frequent service changes due to the narrow communication ranges in 6G-based STIN environments. To address these challenges, we propose a novel authentication scheme to provide secure and high-speed handover process for STIN environments. The proposed scheme leverages mobile edge computing (MEC)-based low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to minimize communications with the central server. Moreover, a key feature of the proposed scheme is the structural separation of computational loads: we utilize elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for robust initial authentication, and only hash functions and exclusive-OR (XOR) operators for high-speed handover process. To prove the security of our scheme,we perform informal analysis, “Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic”, “Real-Or-Random (ROR) model“, “Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation tool”, and “Scyther tool”. Furthermore, we conduct comparative study on security properties, computation, and communication costs of the proposed scheme and the existing related schemes. To verify the practical deployment of the proposed scheme, we perform a simulation study using “Network Simulator 3 (NS-3)”. Our results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can provide efficient and secure communications for MEC-based STIN environments.

The integration of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) within the smart grid has significantly enhanced the reliability, efficiency, and security of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services over the past decade, leading to increased research interest in this technology. Charging stations (CSs) utilize electric vehicles (EVs) to manage demand response and provide sustainable energy solutions. However, the transmission of information between EVs and CSs via public channels causes critical security vulnerabilities. Although much effort has been made to overcome the challenge of protecting security and privacy in V2G environments, these efforts have either been proposed based on a centralized architecture or do not ensure essential security requirements, such as self-sovereignty, reliable, and blockchain scalability. Furthermore, in decentralized network, it is difficult to provide reliable energy distribution because a malicious participant can easily try to inflate trading volumes and manipulate energy prices. In this paper, we propose a new blockchain-enabled, reliable, privacy-preserving scheme using decentralized identifiers (DIDs) for preventing energy wash trading in V2G networks called BAPS-DITS. BAPS-DITS guarantees to tackle the above challenges without a trusted third-party intervention. Additionally, we use informal and formal (mathematical) analysis to prove the security of BAPS-DITS and conduct a comparative analysis comparing the security properties, computational cost, and communication cost of BAPS-DITS to previous studies. Furthermore, we implement BAPS-DITS on a practical Ethereum network, demonstrating its efficiency and feasibility, showing that BAPS-DITS provides self-sovereignty, accountability, and blockchain scalability; thus, it is suitable for actual V2G environments.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) improves flexibility, reliability, and efficiency and ensures effective charging services by enabling two-way communication along with two-way electricity transmission between the power grid and electric vehicle (EV). However, V2G networks are fragile to lethal security threats because an attacker may try to compromise and control the communication participants at any time. Recently, Sureshkumar et al. presented a robust and lightweight authentication key establishment (AKE) for secure V2G networks to provide essential security properties. However, we prove that their scheme suffered from various security threats and lacked essential security properties. To protect against physical security attacks, a promising solution is the use of physical unclonable function (PUF) technology and many AKE schemes have been designed for V2G networks. However, these schemes are still fragile to machine learning (ML)-based modeling attacks as well as existing security threats. Thus, we design a physical unclonable function (PUF)-based robust and anonymous AKE scheme for V2G networks, called R2AKEV2G to resist ML-based modeling attacks. We prove the security of R2AKEV2G by performing formal security analyses. Moreover, we perform a network simulator (NS) 3 implementation in compliance with IEEE 802.11 to prove its feasibility and verify that R2AKE-V2G is suitable for practical V2G networks. Consequently, R2AKE-V2G supports better security features and functionalities attributes and also guarantees superior costs with regard to communication and computation as compared to existing relevant schemes.

Multi-domain vehicle to grid (V2G) is a network environment in which numerous service providers offer charging and discharging services to EV users. This can enhance energy management and traffic flow for efficient intelligent transportation systems (ITS). However, the combination of multiple domains can suffer from various security vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for robust countermeasures. Moreover, existing multi-domain V2G protocols utilized a central trusted authority (TA) which can create a single point of failure (SPOF), or required high computational resources. In this paper, we propose a multi-domain authentication protocol for secure and efficient V2G services using consortium blockchain. The proposed protocol provides lightweight intra-domain authentication using hash functions and XOR operators. Furthermore, the proposed protocol ensures secure cross-domain authentication by integrating elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and physical unclonable function (PUF). Therefore, the proposed protocol can establish trust, enable efficient communications, and prevent congestion at charging stations. To validate security robustness, comprehensive evaluations are conducted using “Real-Or-Random (ROR) model”, “Scyther tool”, and informal analyses. Comparative computational overheads of the proposed and related protocols are measured using “Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic Cryptographic Library (MIRACL)” testbed experiments. Additionally, a simulation of the practical deployment is conducted using “Network Simulator-3 (NS-3)”. Results indicate that the proposed protocol can improve ITS by providing secure and efficient services for multi-domain V2G environments.

With the ongoing revolutionary growth of the industrial Internet of Things and smart grid networks, smart grid (SG) communication has been acknowledged as a next-generation network for intelligent and efficient electric power transmission. In SG networks, smart meters (SMs) generally send requests for electricity demand to service providers (SPs), which deal with the requests for efficient energy distribution. However, SGs experience many security issues with the deployed SMs and untrusted wireless communication. To tackle these security issues, we propose a privacy-preserving authentication scheme for demand response management in SGs, called BPPS. It can resist various attacks and achieve secure mutual authentication with key agreement; moreover, it provides integrity of demand-response data using blockchain. Moreover, we perform the informal and formal (mathematical) security analysis to confirm that BPPS is secure against various attacks and achieves session key security, respectively. Furthermore, we conduct the performance and simulation analysis for SGs using NS3 and Ethereum testnet. Consequently, BPPS provides high-level security and can be applied to actual SG networks.

Smart grid (SG) has been received significant attention due to various services such as renewable energy and demand response. However, SG is fragile to various security attacks because an adversary can eavesdrop, insert, delete, or intercept the exchanged messages over an open channel. Thus, secure and lightweight authentication and key agreement (AKA) scheme for SG to ensure the necessary security requirements. Recently, the existing schemes designed a secure and efficient AKA protocol for industrial SG using cryptographic primitives to ensure reliable energy services. However, we prove that existing schemes for industrial SG are vulnerable to potential security attacks and do not guarantee the necessary security requirements. To enhance the security flaws of the existing schemes, we design a secure and lightweight AKA scheme for SG using fuzzy extractor, called ISG-SLAS. ISG-SLAS resists various security attacks and provides security functionalities. We evaluate the security of the ISG-SLAS using ROR model and AVISPA simulation. Moreover, we present the testbed experiments using MIRACL based on Raspberry PI 4. We then present a comparative analysis between ISG-SLAS and related schemes. Consequently, ISG-SLAS better ensures security and efficiency compared with related schemes and is more suitable than related schemes for practical SG.

With the rapid development of micro-electronics and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), users can utilize various service such as Internet of Things(IoT), smart-healthcare and smart-home using wearable devices. However, the sensitive information of user are revealed by attackers because the medical services are provided through open channel. Therefore, secure mutual authentication and key establishment are essential to provide secure services for legitimate users in Wireless Body Area Networks(WBAN). In 2019, Gupta et al. proposed a lightweight anonymous user authentication and key establishment scheme for wearable devices. We demonstrate that their scheme cannot withstand user impersonation, session key disclosure and wearable device stolen attacks. We also propose a secure and lightweight mutual authentication and key establishment scheme using wearable devices to resolve the security shortcomings of Gupta et al.'s scheme. The proposed scheme can be suitable to resource-limited environments.

With the development of internet of things (IoT) and communication technology, the sensors and embedded devices collect a large amount of data and handle it. However, IoT environment cannot efficiently treat the big data and is vulnerable to various attacks because IoT is comprised of resource limited devices and provides a service through a open channel. In 2018, Sharma and Kalra proposed a lightweight multi-factor authentication protocol for cloud-IoT environment to overcome this problems. We demonstrate that Sharma and Kalra's scheme is vulnerable to identity and password guessing, replay and session key disclosure attacks. We also propose a secure multifactor authentication protocol to resolve the security problems of Sharma and Kalra's scheme, and then we analyze the security using informal analysis and compare the performance with Sharma and Kalra's scheme. The proposed scheme can be applied to real cloud-IoT environment securely.