As Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) becomes a widely adopted protocol for IoT communication, the use of traditional Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption poses challenges due to its high computational demands on resource-constrained devices and one-way authentication. In this paper, we propose a novel lightweight mutual authentication protocol designed for MQTT-based communication in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments. Our protocol ensures message integrity without the high computational overhead associated with TLS encryption. By leveraging an alternative Authenticated Encryption (AE) method optimized for resourceconstrained devices, we enhance both security and efficiency. To evaluate the performance, we conducted experiments using three Raspberry Pi devices, comparing our protocol to both non-encrypted and TLS-secured MQTT. The results demonstrate a significant reduction in system run-time, from 139 ms to 108 ms, when using the proposed protocol for mutual authentication, compared to default TLS, which only supports oneway authentication. Additionally, simulations conducted in NS3, across various practical scenarios, reveal notable improvements in authentication success rates and reduced delays. Our findings suggest that this protocol offers a promising solution for secure and efficient communication in IIoT systems.

With the exponential growth of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world, security protection and privacy preservation have risen to the forefront of design and development of innovative systems and services. For low-value IoT devices that identify and track billion of goods in various industries—such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags—this involves multiple challenges in very constrained environments. IoT devices aim to design low-cost, low-complexity infrastructure while enabling robust authentication protocols with reduced latency and energy consumption. Given these challenges, in this article, we present a new lightweight authentication protocol for IoT applications, employing an authenticated-encryption (AE) cryptosystem with associated data (AEAD). Since AEAD algorithms provide data confidentiality and message integrity simultaneously, security analysis [Real-or-Random (RoR) and Scyther] results prove the robustness of the proposed protocol against IoT threats. Furthermore, to measure the computation and communication cost, FPGA and ASIC simulations using four different AEAD candidates of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) lightweight cryptography competition are executed. The implementation results [e.g., 4744 gate equivalent (GE) and 0.87-mw power] clearly show that our novel design can be applied to a wide range of constrained IoT devices complying with low-cost, lightweight, and high-speed requirements.

Abstract Radio frequency identification grouping proof authentication protocol is an approach to identify a set of tagged objects simultaneously. Over the past decade, several protocols in this domain have been presented, but each was weak with flawed attributes. It is essential that a grouping proof protocol be both scalable and affordable, considering its use for applications with large quantities of tags and the high level of security. In this paper, we present a secure and scalable grouping proof protocol by utilizing an encryption method that is called authenticated encryption. This encryption method provides both confidentiality and message integrity simultaneously. In addition, it can satisfy the resource limitation of passive tags. The proposed protocol eliminates the dependency among the tags' responses and provides the scalability with minimum message broadcasting. We evaluate the proposed protocol based on formal and informal security methods, and the results prove that it is robust against radio frequency identification attacks and suitable for low‐power and low‐cost devices. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.