A USB- bluetooth two factor mutual authentication security protocol for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are easy to deploy, effective, and can monitor unattended environments. As the data transmitted through these networks is highly sensitive, the security of the networks is important and strong authentication measures must be in place. Authentication is done by means of a security protocol, wherein a user is authenticated through certain factors such as a smartcard or a password, and several mathematical calculations such as hashing, and XOR operations. Several previously proposed authentication protocols and their flaws are discussed in this paper. We propose a new two factor mutual authentication protocol using a USB-Bluetooth token as the second factor, to overcome the security flaws seen in previous schemes. We also provide security analysis as well as Scyther results in support of the proposed protocol. The proposed protocol can be used across various fields such as healthcare, agriculture, traffic monitoring etc.