Designing an efficient and secure authentication scheme is an significant means to ensure the security of IoT systems. Hundreds of authentication schemes tailored for IoT environments have been proposed in recent years, and regrettably, many of them were soon found to have succumbed to security vulnerabilities. In an effort to investigate the underlying reason for this, Wang et al. (at TIFS’23) recently analyzed the vulnerability of authentication schemes from the perspective of provable security. However, we observe that some authentication schemes with sound security proofs and heuristic security analysis are also not resistant to certain attacks, and even those that have been improved several times are still not immune. To explore the deep-seated reasons for security vulnerabilities in IoT authentication schemes, we divide security attacks into explicit and implicit attacks and find that many authentication schemes exhibit security under explicit attacks but are rendered vulnerable under implicit attacks. Further, we propose the relationship between the design goals of security attributes of authentication schemes and implicit attacks, analyze the vulnerability of three typical authentication schemes under implicit attacks, and find that only the security attributes capable of resisting the strongest implicit attacks are secure. Finally, we offer some specific suggestions on how to achieve the security attribute goals.

Abstract Next generation communications (NGC) represents advanced communication environments featuring objects that are focused on users. It is crucial to protect information and digital forensics for NGC. In this paper, we aim to address network security for NGC, including IEEE standard 802.16 that are associated with NGC utilization. The IEEE standard 802.16 is a wireless air interface technology in Wireless Metropolitan Access Network (WMAN). Now in the new era of wireless networking, it is the solution for ‘last mile’ problem. Point‐to‐MultiPoint (PMP) network architecture network mode and mesh network mode are two optional networking modes proposed in this standard. However, the security problems in its original protocol may be becoming the most serious obstacle in its marketable producing process. In this paper, explanation and analysis of the security mechanism are based on PMP and mesh networking modes, respectively. This paper focuses on authentication & authorization, which is the most important part but not explicitly defined in original security design of IEEE standard 802.16. Two improved schemes focused on authentication & authorization based on the two modes are proposed to strengthen 802.16 WMAN security, respectively. The relevant analysis and simulation results prove that our schemes are effective. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Because signals carried by two waveguides entering a common switch element would generate crosstalk, a regular N/spl times/N multistage interconnection network (MIN) cannot be directly used as an optical switch between N inputs and N outputs in an optical network. A simple solution is to use a 2N/spl times/2N cube-type MIN to provide the N/spl times/N connections, which needs a much larger hardware cost. A previous research proposed another solution, called the time-domain approach, that divides the N optical inputs into several groups such that crosstalk-free connections can be provided by an N/spl times/N regular MIN in several time slots, one for each group. Researchers studied this approach on Omega networks and defined the class set /spl theta/ to be the set of N-permutations realizable in two time slots on an Omega network. They proved that the size of /spl theta/ is larger than the size of class /spl Omega/, where /spl Omega/ consists of all N-permutations admissible to a regular N/spl times/N (nonoptical) Omega network. This paper first presents an optimal O(NlogN) time algorithm for identifying whether a given permutation belongs to class /spl theta/ or not. Using this algorithm, this paper then proves an interesting result that the class /spl theta/ is identical to the class /spl Omega/+1 which represents the set of N-permutations admissible to a nonoptical N/spl times/N one-extra stage Omega network.

Since optical networks must support crosstalk-free (CF) connections, regular N/spl times/N multistage interconnection networks (MINs) cannot be directly used to provide connections between N inputs and N outputs. A solution is to use a 2N/spl times/2N Cube-Type MIN to provide the N/spl times/N connections. C. Qiao (1993) proposed a time domain approach that divides the N optical inputs into several groups such that CF connections can be provided by an N/spl times/N regular MIN in several time slots, one for each group. The set of N-permutations realizable in two slots is defined as class /spl theta/. Qiao proved that the size of /spl theta/ is larger than the size of class /spl Omega/, where /spl Omega/ consists of all N-permutations passible through a regular N/spl times/N Omega network. The paper first presents an optimal O(NlgN) time algorithm for identifying whether a given permutation belongs to class /spl theta/ or not. From this algorithm, the paper proves an interesting fact that the class /spl theta/ is identical to the class /spl Omega/+1 which represents the set of N-permutations admissible by a non-optical N/spl times/N one-extra stage Omega network.