Abstract
Internet of Things (IoT) constitutes an ecosystem of networked resource-constrained devices that mandates light-weighted security solutions. In most IoT applications, co-located and proximal devices are connected in 6LoWPAN networks and use the IEEE 802.15 standard for local interactions via device-to-device (D2D) communication. The resource-limited 6LoWPAN networked devices need an efficient authentication mechanism to validate requesters’ identities such that less resources and time are required. In this paper, we propose a novel Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)-based distributed authentication scheme called HessianAuth to achieve efficiencies in resource usage and latency as well as security. We simulated a 6LoWPAN network to support a D2D communication scenario and implemented the proposed authentication mechanism using the Cooja network simulator. We have considered AES-CBC and standard Weierstrass curve-based ECC as the benchmarks and carried out performance analysis with respect to CPU cycles and delay. Further, we carry out a security analysis of HessianAuth using a state-of-the-art tool called AVISPA and demonstrate that the former is secure against man-in-the-middle and replay attacks.